GRADING SYSTEM
Revision 1 (January 29, 2007)


To get an 'A', students must get an 'A' in Effort and an 'A' in Understanding.
To get a 'B', students must get a 'B' or better in Effort and a 'B' or better in Understanding.
To get a 'C', students must get a 'C' or better in Effort and a 'C' or better in Understanding. Alternately, if a student has an 'A' or 'B' in Understanding and a 'D' in effort, they will earn a C-.
To get a 'D', students must get a 'D' in Effort and a 'D' or better in Understanding. Alternately, if they get an 'A' in Effort and an 'F' in Understanding, they will still receive a 'C'.

Effort is coming to class every day, doing the warmup and classwork, and doing the homework.
Understanding is taking an passing the mastery tests. Some of the material is Basic level, and is required to get a 'C'. Some of the material is Advanced, and is required to get an 'A' or 'B'.

Mastery Topics
Students have a number of Master Topics that they need to learn. This is the core material that is needed to succeed in the class, to succeed in the next class, material that is directly useful in life, and material that we know will be on important tests.

On each Mastery Topic item, students get a mark of:

• 5 = Strong Mastery
• 4 = Satisfactory Mastery
• 3 = Almost Mastered
• 2 = Beginning to get it
• 1 = Doesn't get it all, yet

OTHER IMPORTANT POINTS

• It is very important that students master this material. If a student has a 1, 2, or 3 on a mastery topic, s/he isn't getting very many points for that topic yet.
• A 4 or 5, on the other hand, earns the student a lot of points for that topic.
• Students may take the mastery tests as many times as they like, with the following restrictions:
  • No more than one retake may be taken in one day.
  • Students must be doing all their classwork and homework to earn this privalege.
  • Because making and grading tests takes time, Mr. Lindsay may tutor the student first, to make sure the student is ready to pass the test.
• This is a very forgiving system -- if it takes a student 10 tries to master some difficult but important material, that is OK.