Where You Stand Before the Final
A course grade is a weighted sum: each assessment contributes according to the share of the total it carries, not according to how much work it took. A 40 per cent final exam moves your grade twice as far as a 20 per cent midterm, which is why an average of your marks so far rarely matches the grade you will actually receive.
This calculator does that weighting, and works the question backwards too, telling you what you need on the remaining assessments to reach a target grade.
How to Calculate Your Course Grade
The weights come from your syllabus, and getting them right matters more than anything else here.
- List each assessment with the weight it carries. Weights normally total 100 per cent; if yours do not, check the syllabus for a dropped-lowest rule or a bonus component.
- Enter the score you received for each completed assessment, as a percentage.
- Leave the remaining assessments blank. The calculator treats them as still outstanding rather than as zeros.
- Read your current standing, the weighted average of what you have completed so far.
- Enter a target grade to see what you need on the remaining work. If the required score exceeds 100, the target is out of reach and it is better to know now.
- Recalculate after each result comes back, since the remaining weight shrinks and every later assessment counts for more.
Why the Remaining Weight Matters More Than the Gap
Two students both five points below a target are in very different positions if one has 60 per cent of the course left and the other has 15. With most of the weight outstanding, a modest improvement closes the gap; with little left, the required score rises steeply. Dividing the points you need by the fraction of the course remaining is the calculation that actually tells you where you stand.
This is also why early assessments matter more than their weight suggests. A poor mark in week three is recoverable across the rest of the term; the same mark in the final assessment cannot be offset by anything. The practical consequence is that the cheapest time to protect a grade is at the start, when there is still weight left to work with.
What You Need on a 40 Per Cent Final
Assuming the other 60 per cent is complete, this is the final exam score required to reach each target grade.
| Current average (60%) | For 90 overall | For 80 | For 70 | For 60 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 95 | 82.5 | 57.5 | 32.5 | 7.5 |
| 90 | 90 | 65 | 40 | 15 |
| 85 | 97.5 | 72.5 | 47.5 | 22.5 |
| 80 | not possible | 80 | 55 | 30 |
| 75 | not possible | 87.5 | 62.5 | 37.5 |
| 70 | not possible | 95 | 70 | 45 |
| 60 | not possible | not possible | 85 | 60 |
Read down a row to see how much a target costs. The jump from a 70 to an 80 target is consistently 25 points on the final, because 10 points of course grade divided by a 0.4 weight is 25.
Rules That Change the Arithmetic
Many courses drop the lowest quiz, offer a limited retake, or replace a midterm score with the final if the final is higher. Each of these changes the calculation materially and none of them are visible to a general calculator, so read the grading policy before concluding that a target is unreachable.
Rounding is the other detail worth checking. Some institutions round 89.5 up to an A−, others truncate, and a few require a minimum score on a specific component regardless of the total. Where a fraction of a point decides a letter grade, the syllabus rather than the arithmetic is what settles it.