What grade do I have to get on Final Exam to make a certain grade?

**Catherine01** · 05-15-2013, 03:12 PM

Wow! With this question floating around the internet so much around this time, I can't believe I can't figure this out! This is the basic question:

80% of my grades are in (for the 2nd semester) but I still have the 20% final left. How do I figure out what I have to make in order to get an "A" (which is 90-100), "B"(which is 80-90) or "C" (which is 70-80)?
For example, I made an 85 for the 80% part of the 2nd semester. So what is the formula for what I have to make on the 20% final in order to make each of those levels of grades?

And for an extra bonus, if I change the criteria to the 1st and 2nd semesters' grades are each worth 40%, and the final is worth 20%, THEN what do I have to get on the Final in order to make an "A", "B", or "C"?

Thanks.
Oh. and if you could hurry because it will impact on whether or not I do an all-nighter to study, or go out to my friend's bachelorette party!

**Jakobshavn** · 05-15-2013, 03:36 PM

In A1 enter 85 (your current grade)
In B1 enter 80% ( your current percentage)
In C1 enter 90 ( the minimum grade needed for an A)
In D1 enter:
=(C1-A1*B1)/(1-B1)
This displays more than 100 and therefore you cannot get an A. In fact if your final 20% grade was 100, the overall average would be only 88%

Next change C1 to 81 (the minimum grade needed for a B)
Now D1 displays 65. This means that even if the final 20% was as low as 65, your overall average is 81 and you get the B

**ConneXionLost** · 05-15-2013, 03:48 PM

So, you might as well go to the party.

**Catherine01** · 05-15-2013, 05:28 PM

Yes! That works! Thanks. To clarify for each of the two examples:
In the first one, I think the semester exam only goes into the 2nd sem grade, so the grade I have for the 2nd semester would be worth 80% and the exam would be worth 20%. That would give me the whole 2nd semester grade. From there, I could easily find my final grade by just mutipling e3ach by 50% and then adding them together.
I actually used this formula:

=(C1-(A1*0.8))/(1-0.8) since my A1 was equal to 80% of the grade. So if I got C1 for my final exam grade for example, then for the Final Yearly grade I would just multiply the 1st semester grade by the 2nd sem grade.

And for the 2nd scenario, I used this formula

=((C1-(($A1*0.4)+($A2*0.4)))/(1-0.8)), where A1 was my grade for the 1st sem (worth 40%), A2 was the grade for the 2nd sem (worth 40%) and C1 (worth 20%) was the grade if I was to make an A or B or C....

Actually, writing it out like this, maybe I need to submit a page with some info so that you can check it. Do you think or can you tell without it? If so, then I can do it in an hour or two.