http://www.teachforever.com/2012/05/help-students-calculate-grades-they.html Students have subtle ways of reminding you that you still have work to do if they are to grasp the math you've been teaching them. For me, this often came in the form of one of two questions. The first was, "If I get a good score on this test, will my grade go up?" That always made me wonder if a student really understood how averages work and the effect new values in a set can have on them. The second was, "What grade do I need to get on the final exam if I want a (desired grade here) for the course?" You'd think after a year of algebra students would be figuring out the equation to use to solve for that, but it's never that easy. It's a big step to get students to use mathematics for themselves and not just for math class.