Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2019 October 31

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October 31

School results in English

Hi! How are results (like 9/10) called in English? grades, marks, points or results? And how do you say it: 9 out of 10 or 9 on 10? Are the "x/10 also used in English speaking countries or only A, B, C? 113.23.6.201 (talk) 10:47, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

I would call them points (9 out of 10 points). Grades or marks are usually for the letter grade (ABCDF) or the percent grade (95%, 75%). --Jayron32 11:59, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

I (UK speaker) would call 9/10 etc marks, and read it as "nine out of ten". Sometimes we ask "marks out of ten?" as a way of asking someone's opinion of any kind of performance. If written as 90% it would be a percentage, and A, B, C etc are grades. A recent complication is that grades for GCSE are now expressed as numbers 1-9, with (counter-intuitively to me) 9 being the highest. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 12:18, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

For interest, back when I sat them (1972/3), GCSE's predecessors GCE 'O' Levels were graded 1–9 with 1 being highest and 7–9 being fails. I suppose making 9 top leaves the possibility of introducing 10, etc., to allow for either grade inflation or genuinely improving standards (see Flynn effect), whereas 'A' levels have had to introduce the clumsier (and dead end?) 'A*'. ('A**' anyone?) {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.179.237 (talk) 17:38, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

US speaker here. Any scoring of an assignment is a grade. On that assignment the grade would have been a 9. But it could also be described as having earned 9 points out of a possible 10. It's grade percentage would be 90. The A, B, C, etc would be described as "letter grades". --Khajidha (talk) 13:01, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Coming back for more. In usage I am familiar with the verb "mark" would occur only in constructions like "the teacher marked my answer as being wrong" and the noun would refer only to the actual written indication (check mark, x-mark, etc). --Khajidha (talk) 14:18, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

(US) I would call it a "score", as in "My score was 9.", or, to someone unfamiliar with the maximum, "My score was 9 out of 10.", or, in a formal context "My score was 9 out of a possible 10.". Individual quiz and test scores are often numeric, especially in math and science, with letter grades assigned more in English and the humanities, and also at the end of the term. SinisterLefty (talk) 14:01, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

When I was in school (Canada) I'd usually just say "I got 9" or "I got 9 out of 10". I'd call the units "marks", not "points" ("Question 4 was the one where I lost a mark") and I'd describe my results as "marks" also ("I usually get good marks in math and science"), not "grades". I would describe the A, B, C style of marking as "letter grades". Most of my schools gave marks in the form of percentages, not letter grades. --76.69.116.4 (talk) 04:27, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

(U.S. high school, early 1960s) Letters were grades. SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test, for college admission) results were scores. Intermediate class work was graded either as letters or on a scale of 1-100. I never thought of the latter as percentages, just numbers. Jmar67 (talk) 05:35, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Just to add to the confusion here, a well known "score" in Australia is the ATAR, the primary criterion for entry into most undergraduate-entry university programs in the country. It attempts to create a standard national ranking for students who have participated in the diverse education systems in each state. Students end up with a score on a scale from "less than 30" up to 99.95 (in a minimum increment of 0.05). How it works is complicated. Follow that link if you want to know more. HiLo48 (talk) 09:15, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Indian here, we call them 'marks' and would say "nine out of ten". Also, here full marks would be expressed as "out of" or "out of out". Probably an Indian thing. TotallyNotSarcasm [lɨi̯v ə me̞sɪ̈dʒ] [kɔnt͡ɹ̠̝̊ɹ̠ɪ̈bjɨʉ̯ʃn̩z] 12:33, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

That would make you a pinko, commie Marksist. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:21, 4 November 2019 (UTC)