<p>My PE class was pretty much all effort based. The grading was on if you showed up with your gym clothes and dressed out regularly (you got two 'warnings' but you had points docked after that) which was like minus 1 point per day, how well you performed in the various "units" (there were different sports that rotated every 2 weeks that you were supposed to show "competency" in) which was worth like minus 1 or 2 points each, if you ran the mile without walking (this was a big deal, there were 2 shots per quarter at this and you had to run at least one of them without walking - you lost like 7 points if you couldn't pull this off so you'd be down to a 93 and, in our grading system, and 86-92 is a B) and if you could reach "national"(>=50% of kids in nation) level in 3/5 of the fitness tests (there were five tests: the "sit-and-reach" where you so how many inches you could reach forward while sitting up against a wall, # of sit-ups in a minute, # of pull-ups untimed - I couldn't do any, time in the mile - supposed to be under 7:30 I think, and the time in the "shuttle-run" which was a sprint thing where you ran from one side, back, forth, and back again but was really short and took about 9 seconds) which was worth like 5 points.</p>
<p>So you could lose points a couple of ways but for the most part it wasn't hard to ace the course. If it isn't blatantly obvious why you have a D in the class, then it's likely there was a mistake. Definitely pursue this.</p>