<p>I had a question, say one received a B on an exam (I don't know what I get, but I'm saying as a possibility), is it still possible to receive an A as a class grade if the exam is worth 20% of our grade?
If cornell uses the same criteria, and you say a B is a 83 and multiply that by .20, then the highest possible grade is a 96.6 which is an A.
Or is there some other way to calculate it?</p>
<p>That GPA to grade conversion is correct, for a course as a whole. Except at Cornell you also have A+= 4.3. If you are so fortunate.</p>
<p>Within a course, there may be a couple ways an individual prof. could handle it. There may be instances where some overall adjustment is desirable because the individual exam grade curves, taken straight, do not result in the desired overall grade distribution in the end. My wife is an adjunct prof, elsewhere, and she has agonized over stuff like this every semester. I’ve no idea of the extent to which a Cornell prof. is bound to any particular procedure in coming up with his final grades. If the final grade turns up lower than a straight mathematical application of the weights specified in the syllabus, a student may have a beef, but not if the grade turns out higher. The issue may be in part whether each exam grade x weight really stands as itself, or whether it just contributes points towards a semester cumulative total which is then sorted into grades, in totality, at the end.</p>