by Bettina Juszak

Staff Writer

A series of musings on American culture by a German exchange student:

Report cards.

The bane of thousands of students’ existence, the joy for a significantly smaller number. For me, I didn’t even know we got them until a week beforehand. Between normal tests and quizzes, progress reports, and report cards it is easy to lose sight of one or the other (seriously, four report cards and progress reports each school year seems to be going a bit overboard to me).

In Germany we only get equivalents to report cards at the end of each semester (i.e. twice a year) and there is no such thing as a progress report – it is expected that you roughly know what your grades are and act accordingly. (Meaning, if you run your grade down it’s your own fault).

The grading system is different as well. Where you have A through Fs, equaling ten point measures out of a hundred, we have short terms, like ‘very good’, ‘acceptable’, etc. equaling numbers one through six, one being the best. 1-6 are out of a fifteen point scale, with fifteen being the best (but 13, for example, still being a one (or an A here). Confused? Can’t say I really blame you – for once the American system seems more logical and efficient.

Everything about the American grading system seems so structured. You get an amount of points out of a possible amount of points- for everything- from tests, to participation. In Germany, the teacher can use his or her gut feeling. For example if someone messed up one out of four tests, that could just be seen as a slip and not counted, or if the teacher sees that a student knows the material and are just too nervous during tests to concentrate, he or she can still give you a good grade.

Is one system better than the other? I don’t know – but they sure are different.