How much will a grade bring me down?

Question

On one assignment I did, I had a 45%. That same assignment was worth 15% of my total grade for that class. My grade was 95%. How much will that grade bring me down?

Answer 1

Hi Kayla,

 

To make the problem easier, let's assume that there are only two exams in the semester.  You took the first exam (A).  At that point, the score percentage was based on just that one exam.  So, 100% of A = (1.0)A = 95.  Therefore we can say your score on exam A = 95.

 

Then, you took the second exam (B) and scored a 45%, but this exam is only worth 15%.

 

In this case, the total score is going to be 85% of A + 15% of B;

Total = (0.85)(95) + (0.15)(45)

Total = 80.75 + 6.75

Total = 87.5

 

Therefore, you overall percentage in score went down by 7.5%.

 

Note: We assumed that there were only two exams to keep things simpler, but it doesn't matter how many exams there are, as long as the percentage for each exam remains the same, we can use the above calculations.