Out of 20 Grading Scale and Grade Chart

These are the scores out of 20 students look up most. Each one opens its own page with the next letter up, the score every letter needs and the same percent on other test lengths.

The fastest way to grade a stack of 20 question tests is to know the lines. On the 10 point scale an A takes 18 right (2 misses at most), a B 16, a C 14 and a D 12. The 7 point scale is stricter: an A needs 19, a B 17, a C 15 and a pass 14.

With pluses and minuses each step is about three percentage points, narrower than one question here (5 points), so B+, C+ and D+ cannot happen with whole scores on a 20 question test. A full A (93% or more) takes 19 right, so 1 miss at most.

Find the score and read across: the number wrong, the percent and the letter on all three common scales. Every row has its own link (for example the 16/20 grade row) to send to a student, and the print button gives a clean one page sheet for free.

Each question is worth 100 / 20 = 5 percentage points, so every miss costs 5 points off a perfect score. That is why 2 misses still leave an A and 9 misses drop you to an F.

The 10 point and 7 point scales disagree on 5 scores out of 20: 12 (D or F), 13 (D or F), 14 (C or D), 16 (B or C) and 18 (A or B). If your school uses the 7 point scale, read the third letter column.

No score out of 20 lands on a half percent, so rounding to whole percents never changes a letter on this test length.

Passing on the 10 point scale starts at 60%, which is 12 right; on the 7 point scale it is 70%, 14 right. Whether a D passes the whole class is a separate rule, covered in the passing grade guide.

Divide the number right by 20 and multiply by 100: 16 / 20 x 100 = 80%. Then read the letter off your school's scale. The lookup at the top does both, for right or wrong answers, and the chart lists every score, so a teacher can grade a whole class from one sheet.

Grading a test of another length, or with weighted sections? The test grade calculator takes any number of questions and builds the easy grader chart for it, and the grading scale chart turns any percentage into a letter. Charts for other lengths: out of 10, out of 12, out of 15, out of 25, out of 30, out of 40, out of 50 and out of 60.