doyle | (no subject)

Hmm. Looking through some old BBF discussion and I saw this comment by Gyrus (whose LJ handle I forget, sorry):

(For example, I recently read a fic in which something bad happens and Giles tries to tell Buffy that there was no way she could have anticipated it. She replies, "But I should've done!" That just looks weird to a Yank like me.)

I'm sure I'm guilty of using that myself. Why's it wrong? Should it be 'shoulda' instead of should've?

...any other glaring errors any of you have noticed non-Americans making? Because god knows I could go on for pages in obsessive Brit-picking of both Harry Potter fics and Buffy fics set in England (the language thing I get, but some of the cultural stuff, the 'my character's British so they've never heard of ___' : we do have pizzas and action movies and strange flavours of chips/crisps in Britain and Ireland, I promise you)

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Posted by

thisficklemob.livejournal.com

Well, the thing about the verbal SATs is that you CAN'T study for them, really. The verbal is all things like reading comprehension and vocabulary. A friend of mine tried to study for the vocabulary years in advance... and I was very pleased to beat her verbal score... ;)... but it's really a matter of having read a lot. Now, Buffy doesn't strike me as much of a reader, but she does gradually do more research. She's also quite smart with strategy and stuff... she just has other things occupying her time than academics, as Professor Walsh noted.

As for the math, I did less well than on the verbal (but still fine) because the math on it was all years behind what I was currently taking as an honors student. I took the SATs junior year (11th grade), and the math was from 7-9th grade. I would have done better if I'd gone back and reviewed, but if Buffy was being tutored by Willow, and taking level 1 or 2 math instead of honors, she might have been quite well prepared for it.

Another thing to remember is that they reset the scoring about 8-10 years ago because the median score had dropped (because lots more people started taking the SATs than used to). However, it's worth noting that SATs are not worth as much as grades and essays to most colleges, and recommendations and extra-curriculars matter too. So yes, Buffy's score put her in the SAT range for good colleges, but they might not have taken her anyway.

Posted by

doyle_sb4.livejournal.com

This is all good info for me, because I don't know anything about the American exam system (for instance, until you mentioned it above I didn't think about grades on homework as counting towards someone's college application - GPA's Grade Point Average, isn't it? How's that work, then? Do you get a certain number of points for an A, etc?)

How it works in the UK is you do SATs (sometimes called Ket Stage 3) at 14 - these are just in English, Maths and Science. At 16 you sit GCSEs in anywhere between 8 and 12 (or possibly more) subjects. People can leave secondary school then or go on for another two years to do A-Levels in 3 or 4 subjects; there are the new AS Levels to let people take more subjects. The A-Levels are graded A, B, C, D, E, N, U, and these get converted to points for university applications (10, 8, 6, 4, 2 and 0 as far as I remember) Nobody graduates from secondary school, they just leave.

Posted by

thisficklemob.livejournal.com

Well, in most schools you get a letter grade every quarter, or least every semester. In my school, we also had "progress reports" which were filled out by hand by the teachers rather than mass-printed by the school. They were less formal, but let you know where you stood. Often a parent has to sign a report card (or progress report) and the kid has to turn it back in, to ensure the parents are aware of their kid's grades. Some schools hand them out in homeroom, others mail them.

The grades usually go A, B, C, D, and F. Some schools give A+s, but most give -s on every grade except F and +s on every grade but A. An A would often be 95-100%, an A- 90-95%, (assuming no A+s)... B+ is around 87-90%, B 84-86%, B- 80-83%, etc. Anything under 60% is an F. For things like papers which have less to do with percent correct, A range is excellent, B good, C fair, D poor, F failing (usually for not doing the assignment at all). C is supposed to be the average grade, but since parents don't like that much, in both high school and college the median is often in the B range. Plenty of teachers also give harder tests and then curve them... so in a given math class, you could get 60% of the questions right, but still get a B or A, if that was one of the better scores.

Every teacher decides for themself how their grading system works, and how everything is weighted. A class might be 30% exams (in my school, two hour scheduled tests twice a year), 30% tests, 20% quizzes (which are given more often and are short), and 20% homework and participation. But it totally depends on the class and the teacher – some teachers grade notebooks, English and history classes usually have papers, lab sciences may have lab reports, foreign languages may give more weight to participation, etc. And teachers can, at their discretion, give a higher grade than a person's actual average, if their work is improving, or if they've done extra credit work.

Confused yet? GPA is the numerical average of all your report card/end of semester grades during a semester, a year, or all four years of high school or college. Generally speaking, an A is a 4.0, a B is a 3.0, a C is a 2.0, a D is a 1.0 and an F is a 0.0. Classes that are longer – like lab sciences – may be more heavily weighted in the averaging. Classes like gym are usually not averaged in.

Posted by

thisficklemob.livejournal.com

(cont.)

In my high school, GPA was adjusted to reflect the different levels of classes. The idea was that an honors (or level zero) class was more work and had higher standards than a level one class, a level one class was harder than a level two class, and so on. They figured someone shouldn't be punished for getting a slightly lower grade in a more challenging class. (Punished because GPA determines class rank, and class rank is one way colleges sort applications.) So for my honors/level 0/AP (advanced placement) classes, an A was averaged in as a 4.4 rather than a 4.0, and so on.

The class levels went from 0 or 1, depending on the subject, to 3 or 4. 1 or 2 were standard levels, 3 or 4 was usually remedial. Buffy's school was clearly different, because Willow and Buffy and Xander were often in the same classes. My high school did have unleveled freshman science, health, and some other classes... those didn't get factored into your GPA at all. One controversy in American high schools has to do with leveling or "tracking" – where you are put into a given level at the beginning of junior high or high school, and stay there. This tends to perpetuate class distinctions, and is sometimes racist, and all that. In my school you could move up a level if you convince teachers you are capable – and moreover, willing to do the work, which was the big difference between honors and one (or one and two for a class with no honors offered). But in subjects like math, that would be nearly impossible, because the highest level class in a given year might teach something totally different than the lower leveled classes.

High school ends after senior year/12th grade, when there is a graduation. Some places have graduations from junior high/middle school (usually covering two to three years between 6th and 9th grade) or grade school, or even kindergarten (for 5 year-olds, pre-first grade), but I find those a bit silly. You can drop out of school legally at 16, but that tends to lead to lower-paying/unskilled jobs... the state is required to educate you until you are 18. There is an alternative to regular high school called vocational or voke... it's usually for non-college bound kids, who study things like wood and metal shop, auto repair, hair dressing, sewing, etc., as well as a reduced regular academic curriculum. Some vocational schools now include preparation for more technical careers, and some arrange for and require job internships outside school in the local community.

That's probably more than you ever wanted to know... two comments worth!... But it was sorta fun for me to try to break it down for someone unfamiliar with it, because it's quite complex when I think about it... I just always took it for granted.

Posted by

doyle_sb4.livejournal.com

You rock hard. I'm saving all this for future fic reference.

Posted by

thisficklemob.livejournal.com

Sweet. Feel free to ask me more... I keep thinking of more things to explain (like statewide tests for graduation, which some states have and some don't, and all the pre-college tests), magnet schools, etc etc. But those things are unlikely to come up. If you really are saving this, please note there is no grade F+... I messed up that sentence. *g*

Posted by

thesecondevil

Just dropping in to say they've changed the points system, you get:

At A-Level

360 points for an A
300 points for a B
240 points for a C
180 points for a D
120 points for an E

At AS level

180 points for an A
150 points for a B
120 points for a C
90 points for a D
60 points for an E

And obviously for an N or U, you get nothing.