<p>Is there any reason that they were created, or are they just there to confuse you and to look cool?</p>
<p>I’m completely serious. I just want to know why people don’t just stick with the 100 point scale. Does anyone know the reason behind it?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Because some classes are significantly harder than others. For example, how would you compare a 70% in a college-level physics class (e.g. AP Physics C) to a 90% in a regular high school physics course?</p>
<p>That’s not what I meant at all! I’m saying, what is the point of having 100 point scales, 4 point scales, 5 point scales, 9 point scales, etc.? This has nothing to do with the weight of higher level courses.</p>
<p>To clarify, this is what I want to know:
Why did people decide to start converting to 4 point scales and others of the sort?
Why was it decided that a GPA of 97 should be changed into 4.0 (and so on)? Is there any logical explanation for that?</p>
<p>That’s like for the logical explanation of us driving in the right side of the road. Events led up for the standard to be that way.</p>
<p>100 pt > 4 pt. </p>
<p>I’d rather have the exactness of a 95 or a 97 than the ambiguity of a 3.9 to a 4.0.</p>
<p>I’d rather have the exactness of 954 or 959 out of 1000 rather than the ambiguity of a 95 or 96 out of 100.</p>
<p>
I don’t see it that way. If we didn’t have a set side of the road to drive, there would be constant confusion and accidents.
If we didn’t have different GPA scales… what would be different? There would be no negative consequences that I can think if. I actually think life would be a whole lot easier.</p>
<p>
AMEN</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No, you interpreted it wrong.</p>
<p>
I understand that you were trying to make the point of customs and such adapting over time. That’s not really a point that needs to be brought up, because it’s common knowledge.
My response to that is that some of the adaptations (such as sides of the road) are necessary and beneficial, while others (such as different GPA scales) are not. </p>
<p>I don’t see what other way it could be interpreted. I’m very sorry if I offended you with my antipathy toward the 4.0 scale…?</p>
<p>I just want to know how what “genius” decided to make things more complicated by making different scales and if there was a logical reason behind it. If you don’t know the answer, you don’t have to answer. If the answer is unknown, you can say so.</p>
<p>I’ve always preferred the 100 point scale my school uses. I agree with a previous poster who said the scale is a lot less ambiguous.</p>
<p>The hundred point scale wouldn’t work at my school for magnet school students…Policy is that magnet school classes count as weighted As because the high school isn’t given access to those grades, how they’re calculated, or lesson plans for those classes…The hundred point scale wouldn’t work unless we were automatically given 100s for being in the class…Though that’d be very similar to what they do for us now already…</p>
<p>That’s like asking, why so many units of measurement? For example, Fahrenheit, Celsius, Kelvin in order to measure temperature. Why do we have both Celsius and Kelvin when one could be obtained by adding 273.15?</p>
<p>I see your point about all the different grading scales. Lots of schools use the 5 point scale with AP, IB, or other college-level courses simply because more effort is needed (i.e. an A in a college-level class should be ranked higher than an A in a normal HS course). I haven’t seen 9-point scales very often…</p>
<p>The good thing is that the scales can easily be converted from one to the other.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p><em>knows question is rhetorical but is compelled to answer anyway</em></p>
<p>Because the Celsius scale was developed first but scientists don’t like to deal with negative numbers so they found absolute zero and used the intervals from the Celsius scale. There is also the Rankine scale that uses the intervals of Fahrenheit but begins at absolute zero.</p>
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</p>
<p>IMO this is just an illusion of precision. The measurement systems used are not typically accurate enough for results to be listed at such of detail. There are numerous threads on CC with stories like the Val has a 98.245 and the Sal has a 98.205. Really, does anyone think the measurements are accurate enough that carrying the averages to that many significant digits actually reflects a difference in performance more than noise in the measurement.</p>
<p>In addition, a 4 point scale (or it’s variants) much more closely represent how you will be measured both in college and in the work place. In a world with limited time and too much to do the rougher measurement systems start teaching the lesson of when you what you’ve done is good enough and it’s time to move on … while, to me, the 100 point scale can drive too much focus on being a perfectionist and even more competition about grades.</p>
<p>Of course YMMV.</p>
<p>PS - Ultimately there are so many scales because in the US school systems are run locally and each system decides how it wants to do things … and each variant has it’s own strengths and weaknesses (and traditional areas of use). Do all high schools use the same scheduling strategy (traditional vs block scheduling)? Do they all use the same advanced work approach (AP vs IP)? Do they all treat APs and honors the same when calculating GPAs? Why would GPA scales be consistent across the country when nothing else is?</p>
<p>Alright. Thanks for the good answers, guys!</p>
<p>Not only that, but weighted GPA’s skew it up more.</p>
<p>Some schools give +1 to a GPA for AP classes, others give a +0.5 and there are a variety of other methods.</p>