Knick Grading Scale Calculator

A bent key anchors grade 4 at the pass mark you set, splits everything above it into four equal steps for grades 4 to 1, and everything below into two for grades 5 and 6. Out of 100 points with the bend at 50 percent that gives 87.5, 75, 62.5, 50 and 25. No German authority prescribes these numbers.

A bent key exists because a purely linear one puts half the marks on a 3.5 rather than on the pass line. The fix is to pick the pass mark first and build the scale around it. That mark, the bend, carries grade 4. The points above it are split into four equal steps for grades 4, 3, 2 and 1, and the points below into two much wider steps for grades 5 and 6. Out of 100 points with the bend at 50 percent, a 1 starts at 87.5 and a 5 already starts at 25. Grades in the passing range are therefore tightly packed and single points matter, while a failing paper falls a long way before the grade moves again. That is the intended effect, and it is why the shape is popular at German Gymnasien, and reportedly especially in Bavaria. What has to be said plainly is where these numbers come from: nowhere official. No German ministry publishes a binding points-to-grade table for classroom tests. Legally the key belongs to the teacher, and the binding numbers live in the internal marking concept of a school subject department. The split used here, four steps above and two below, is the common convention and nothing more. Other schools cut the same idea differently, in half grades, with a second bend, or with a ceiling near the top. Ask which key your test used before treating a number here as your grade.