are we all intelligent then?

[DisplayofCharacter]

Here (ie Greece) we have a 0-10 grading system in elementary school, a 0-20 system in junior high and in high school, and a 0-10 in university as well.

Thank you for helping me with my international ignorance.

I remember reading about something similar to that in Mexico (?) or Spain (?) in my Spanish language class. Its not completely unfamiliar to me. Also, there are variations on what percentage range equal what letter grades. I think that's regional, however.

 

[Jolty]

I seem to remember something about my elementary schools not being allowed to assign failing grades.

 

[Villain]

We're getting way off topic, but here's the Finnish grading system, as accurately as I can remember:

In elementary school and "lukio" (the closest equivalent of a high school, I suppose) there's an 4-10 system, where 4 means failure.

In vocational schools (where people go instead of "lukio" to learn a profession) there's a 1-5 system, where 1 is the lowest accepted grade and 5 is the highest.

At the end of "lukio", there are nationwide test on various subjects that are rated on an odd latin-based system which goes like this (from worst to best): improbatur (i for short) - approbatur (a) - lubenter approbatur (b) - cum laude approbatur (c) - magna cum laude approbatur (m) - eximia (e) - laudatur (l). Traditionally, there were 6 different subjects, thus 6 laudaturs was the best possible paper one could get, but nowadays people can take 5-8 (or perhaps even more) subjects. This paper is only used to get into universities nowadays, but back in the day it was an important status-symbol.

The various universities and polytechnics and whatnot have many different systems, but one of the most common is a 1-3 system, where 1 is the lowest accepted grade and 3 is the highest.

As you can see from above, alphabets are used only very rarely in the Finnish grading and when they are used, an a is a worse grade than a c.

-Villain

 

[Kovenant84]

Man... I honestly don't mean this in a derogatory way, or even to imply that the systems are bad, but I always get this really funny image (now reinforced), that the Finns just don't like any of their systems to be like anyone elses... almost like the language... and go out of their way on purpose to make it seem convoluted to everyone else. It's like they're challenging the rest of the world to figure it out.

~kov. (...has just been intrigued by the country since he found out Finnish has no relationship to any other language. If anything, he thinks that's damn cool.)

 

[Villain]

Man... I honestly don't mean this in a derogatory way, or even to imply that the systems are bad, but I always get this really funny image (now reinforced), that the Finns just don't like any of their systems to be like anyone elses... almost like the language... and go out of their way on purpose to make it seem convoluted to everyone else. It's like they're challenging the rest of the world to figure it out.

~kov. (...has just been intrigued by the country since he found out Finnish has no relationship to any other language. If anything, he thinks that's damn cool.)

Heh, I guess you're pretty damn right - you should just know how damn weird the rest of the world seems from here. I remember how, years ago, I thought "straight A's" meant that someone just barely passed the minimum requirements (I failed to mention above that an i means a failure).

As for the Finnish language, it is distantly related to Estonian and Hungarian and a bunch of small (and dying) languages in Russia.

-Villain

 

[Dark_Silence]

In Belgium, the school system is divided in Primary School (6 years) and Secondary school (6 years).

In Primary school, we had grades from 0 till 10 (where 5 is passing grade, 0 the worst and 10 the best).

In Secondary scchool, we had a 0-20 grading system (for the small test/homework during the year) and 0-100 grading system for the big exams (2 times a year, before Christmas and in the end of the schoolyear in June). The final grade, between 0 and 100 includes the result of the exam (70&#37 , and the average number of all the homework (30%) we did from the first half of the year at christmas, or for the second half of the year in June). Which is cool, because sometimes you fail your exam with lets say 48/100, you can still pass if you have enough points with the part of homework/small test to make up for the 2 missing points!

Here in Germany, at teh university, tehre is some sort of weird grading system, that doesnt exists at all in Belgium.
Grades from 1 to 4. All those grades mean that you passed, but less than 4 is failed. the grades inbetween are 1.2 , 1.7, ... like that for all grades exept for 4. and the 0.2 or 0.7 is like a + or - . Or something like that...
Someone from Germany, please correct me if i am mistaken

 

[Taliesin]

It's 1 - 1,3 - 1,7 - 2,0 and so on
4,0 is the worst grade to still pass, afterwards, it's just failed, without grade

 

[Dark_Silence]

It's 1 - 1,3 - 1,7 - 2,0 and so on
4,0 is the worst grade to still pass, afterwards, it's just failed, without grade

oh well, that was almost it!

 

[Siren]

"lukio" (the closest equivalent of a high school, I suppose)

I always get this really funny image (now reinforced), that the Finns just don't like any of their systems to be like anyone elses...

I realise that now that i will mention this the Finns will probably run off to change it, but i can't help it:
"lukio" is almost the same as the greek word for high school, λύκειο (pronounced lee'keeo).

 

[rahvin]

As for the Finnish language, it is distantly related to Estonian and Hungarian and a bunch of small (and dying) languages in Russia.

Couldn't we save them? I don't know, have them mate in captivity, like pandas, and then take them back to the wild once we've taught them how to hunt new speakers?

edit: High school = often but not exclusively liceo in Italian.

 

[Kovenant84]

Couldn't we save them? I don't know, have them mate in captivity, like pandas, and then take them back to the wild once we've taught them how to hunt new speakers?

Ah, but you see, the Finns would never aid in that plan. They're eliminating those other languages one by one. Think, only a few more generations and there won't be any proof of similarity left

I can't say our system of grading makes much more sense, though. For the most part, high schools and colleges make use of either a 0-100 scale, or the (relatively) standard 0.0-4.0 scale. Though, oddly, I've seen some colleges use a 0.0-5.0 scale, which I'm assuming would be calculated in a similar manner. The thing with going down to 0.0, though, is you get novelties like the one group (in spite of my academic troubles, I was never bad enough to be in this category) known as the "square root club". It was a particularly horrid bunch that wound up there. Essentially, the square root of your GPA had to be higher than your GPA. Ouch.

~kov.

 

[afz902k]

Highschool in mexico is called Preparatoria which is well, meant to be preparation for College/University.

Well anyway, I don't think metal is related to intelligence, at least here.
I've been to quite a few metal concerts and most people there are vandals, and I don't mean the East Germanic tribe that entered the late Roman Empire during the 5th century.