> Right, which is why 93%+ is typically considered an 'A' but if you get less than an 'A' it means you failed to meet expectations. This is a really strange co

> Right, which is why 93%+ is typically considered an 'A' but if you get less than an 'A' it means you failed to meet expectations. This is a really strange concept to me. So wherever you went to school, most students were always able to get 93% or more points in tests, so they "met expectations"? And there was almost nobody who managed to exceed expectations, so it wasn't necessary to keep some of the grades reserved for these people? I can give some insight in the situation in Germany, where I live. We don't have grades A-F, but 1-6, with A=1, B=2 and so on. So it's basically the same system, just with numbers. But: there are textual expressions as well for each of the numbers. The one for the grade 4, or 'D', is "ausreichend", which means "sufficient" in German, and in the long explanation it is described as being the grade someone gets if he just managed to meet the expectations. So if you got anything above that grade, it means you were above the expectations, and if you were below, you failed to meet expectations. Typically, tests were designed such that 50% correct answers give the grade 4 and are thus expected from each student. The other 50% should be hard enough to get right so that getting a significant share of them right proves that you managed to exceed the expectations. I guess this design should encourage students to improve themselves and to push themselves beyond the minimum expectations of teachers. By setting aside the largest part of the rating scale (1-4) to honor greatness and using just the smaller part (4-6) to punish laziness, people should rather be motivated by positive feedback instead of by punishment, which is clearly negative feedback.