Final Exams! Grades?

[Alexanderofmacedon]

At age 5 you start at Kindergarden, which is like in Britain, a place to get used to school.

Then you move on to elementary school, which starts with Grade 1. You go through elementary school until Grade 5 (or 6 in some schools) and then go to Junior school. There you are about 12 and you stay at the junior school for 3 years until 9th grade, where you start high school at about age 15. You stay there until Grade 12 where you usually go to a college (optional) for between 2-3 years standard unless you get a PhD, MD or Bachelors (and maybe some other stuff).

Then you're done...

Help?

EDIT: You said universities...Doh!

[AntiochusIII]

I'll do my best to explain it.

Thank you. That makes a lot of sense. Not really dissimilar to ours, except for the 13th year.

[Taffy_is_a_Taff]

Software Architecture: 98.5%
Technical Writing (well, professional tehnical communications strategies):99.something%
Computer Networks: 88.1% (which serves me right for leaving labs to the last minute).

[Duke Malcolm]

By the way, the British educational system gives me a headache.

The North British Educational System:

Nursery School:- For one or two years, parent's choice. Ages 3-5
Not taught much, except how to count, and how to say the alphabet

Primary School: 5-11/12
Primary (P) 1
P2
P3
P4
P5
P6
P7

Taugh the Nationwide 5-14 curriculum, the alphabet, arithmetic, very basic algebra (x+6=14 sort of thing), Religious (Christian) Education, the Wars of Independence, A variety of studies on miscellaneous subjects -- I did Japan (although it was diluted with China), the Rainforest, Animals, and some other things -- also, Music, a modern landuage (I did Spanish, but did French in Secondary School), art, PE.

Secondary School: 11/12 - 17/18 (one can leave from the fourth year, however)
1st Year (a.k.a. S1)
2nd Year
3rd Year
4th Year
5th Year
6th Year

The above 5-14 curriculum continues finished in 2nd year, although the language studied in Primary generally changes, and other such things.
In 3rd & 4th Year one studies for 2 years on Standard Grades (which are dislike by the system and are set to be removed entirely), the equivalent of GCSE
In 5th year one can study for Intermediate 1 (a very low level), Intermediate 2 (a low level), Higher (just less than English GCE A levels).
In 6th year one can study all of the 5th year courses, as well as the Advanced Higher, in which a B pass generally allows entrance to 2nd year university course (better than English GCE A-levels, but damned harder...)

[Kanamori]

Maybe someone can explain something about American universities to me-do you not have to decide what you're going to do your degree in before you start the course? Can you change it part way through? This is what deciding on your major is about, yes?

The degree doesn't really have to be declared for a while. For most people, they have to take general requirements for what ever college they're going in to: such as Letters and Sciences, Music, Business. These requirements are pretty "general"() and can be met in many ways. So, a lot of people only have a vague idea of what their intended BA or whatever is going to be in. BA's or other degrees have certain requirements too, some general and some specific classes. Otherwise, you can mostly take what you want and there is a wide variety of ways to meet your requirements. In this system, you can take a lot of classes that are unnecessary for your intended major. I like it, because I can take things that I'm interested in like physics, chemistry, economics, and astronomy which are unrelated to my majors, philosophy and political science, although for some people, there are requirements in their college's schools, L&S, Music, etc., which would generally encompass these, but one can test out of general classes, and take AP tests in order to meet those requirements prior to entering university. L&S is generally a huge college that for archaic reasons includes everything from philosophy, poli sci, math, sciences, languages and many other things, but ultimately its up to the universities how to split it up. I'm not sure if that would help answering your question, in case I got it wrong, but my crazy rant is done.

[Muska Burnt]

math C(f u jacobs)
scienece B(shoudl have a, A)
english C(i deserve this one)
german C(im missing a project gotta get it in)
pe A(...)
woodshop B,A not sure