The B Grade


 * It should be noted that these examples might be justified a little because it does seem like the closer you get to perfection without getting there, the madder you would be.
 * This (Swedish) Troper was bumped down from MVG (Very Well Aproved) to VG (Well Aproved) in a National Exam of English because of one miss-spelled word (Sandwitch instead of Sandwich), and God how it hurted.
 * How it hurt. sorry
 * I don't mean to be insensitive or anything, but given what your example was about, that's really funny.
 * Well, it would have been funnier if it was sandvich
 * Funny grammar aside, this (also Swedish) troper know exactly how you feel. In my case, it was because I missed a single citation DX Ouch.Needless to say, I'm anal about citations now.
 * Real life subversion - this editor had a (mostly unearned) reputation as the class 'brain' in highschool, but was never bothered by 'B' grades. Other students would be surprised, though.
 * This Troper also has that distinction, despite being a B-student.
 * this-guy gets some F-grade grades, especially in English, but is still the one people ask questions to (besides the teacher) for help in any sort of math, science, history, vocabulary and spelling. I know stuff about art too, guys
 * Another real life subversion- this troper is a National Merit Semifinalist and made a 5 on her AP Language & Composition exam, yet barely passed her junior year and is struggling with senior year right now.
 * Count this troper in as well, spending most of middle and high school on the line between A and B before he actually started working in order to get scholarships. Previously he just didn't care, and accepted low marks in language and arts courses as the way it was.
 * Justified in some cases. Poor high-schoolers trying to get scholarships, college kids trying to keep them, and people trying to get into very prestigious schools or some other highly sought position may literally have to have perfect 4.0s every year; so it is understandable for people with goals set this high to be upset about what most would consider a good grade.
 * Yeah, seriously. This Troper always feels annoyed at anything less than a B because he needs a 3.2 minimum semesterly and cumulative GPA to keep his scholarship. This Troper is in computer science in an American university whose CS department still mostly grades to make the average grade a C. It wouldn't be so bad if the honors college that awards the scholarship didn't mostly concern itself with the humanities. In the humanities grade inflation has made the 3.2 standard quite reasonable, but when translated to the natural sciences or engineering it still means you have to be really good.
 * This troper was slightly irked by his good friend being upset about an A-. Yes: A minus. True, he was a very smart cookie, but come on.
 * This troper's friend cried over an A- in seventh grade. She, um, she was something of a perfectionist.
 * This troper recalls a Chinese student from his math class nearly crying about a 97.
 * This troper will do you one better: he had a Chinese friend who did cry - over a 98.7 in Math.
 * And this one cried over an 89% in a Cisco Systems CCNA exam. (Justified, because the coordinator had set the passing threshold very, very high, all the way to 90%; he gave him a chance).
 * A... 90% for passing CCNA?! This troper is DOOMED! *cries*
 * This troper was happy to pass his Calc 3 midterm with a 64% without a curb. His best friend was complaining about getting a 92% because he made a dumb mistake. He did stop when I pointed out that I would gladly trade him his grade and the points he would have gotten back wouldn't change his GPA.
 * This troper was once in a class with this one girl. For a test, she scored a 97%. She asked if she could redo it to get a 100. On another test, she scored an 84 and was (very) noticeably pissed... She's Korean. Why do you ask?
 * This Troper's friend's brother apparently freaked out when his PSAT score put him in the 94th percentile. He'd been in the 98th the previous year.
 * If that happens again, I suggest saying something similar to "At least you didn't get the worst grade imaginable. An A. Minus! MINUS!"
 * This troper goes to school in a town with an Asian majority, so complaints over Bs and A-s are very much so Truth In Television.
 * This troper wonders what would happen if above troper's school graded on a curve...
 * Truth In Television for this troper, who upsets his sister sometimes by being really disappointed about B-Grades and treating them as failures.
 * Truth In Television for this troper. He used to think it was that he actually cared: since college he's figured out he's really just worried his parents will kill him over it. Given the speech he received about a GPA lower than 3.8, he's pretty sure he was rightly worried.
 * This troper smashed up his Â£300 mountain bike after he got 99% in a latin test. This troper also has issues...
 * This troper once played the part of the confused friend to a girl who broke down crying over a B- on an English test in the eighth grade.
 * This troper is very guilty. In fact she kind of transferred schools to start over and be known as a constant 4.0 student ... oops!
 * This troper's life, despite (or due to?) having a medical condition that negatively affects the brain. She is still upset about being one question off a perfect score in a English test, cried after a teacher belittled her concerns about receiving a 19/20 for an assignment, and is unhappy with her UAI in the mid-nineties.
 * This troper, back in high school, set a personal goal of getting an A- or better in all of his classes after getting one B and all A's or A-'s one semester. He never succeeded at that; every semester, there was always that one subject that he got a B in; though not exactly a tear-jerkingissue, it was still pretty frustrating. Now in college, he doesn't really care about perfect semesters anymore—as long as his grades get him into higher classes, that's all that matters to him.
 * This troper got into Cambridge university, still managed to stand above the rest of his peers...but anything less than a first class essay used to send him into a rage, smashing things up, almost breaking down in tears.
 * This troper learned not to care about class rank in high school by seeing how it affected others: a classmate once spent the better part of a class period feeling down on himself because of dropping from 3rd to 6th.
 * This troper's uncle is a college professor. Apparently there are students out there who get upset when their "A" isn't an "A+".
 * This troper is one of said students. This troper has been heavily mocked over this.
 * This troper is a college professor. He once was the recipient of a screaming tirade threatening a lawsuit against himself and his entire University by a student who received an A- instead of an A in a course. The A- was based on a C midterm and a B on the course projectâ€”a project which said troper had allowed the student to redo and turn in after the end of class, based on his poor performance the first go-round. Ironically, it turned out that when the student calmed down enough to have his grades reviewed peaceably, his midterm score turned out to have been mis-recorded and he got his A after all. Although the troper was severely temptedâ€¦
 * This troper experienced a real-life subversion: A kid in class widely recognized as the "smart one" failed a test. His friends seemed to be expecting him to go ape over it and were having an awkward time wondering what to do. The kid just non-chalantly dismissed the grade and was confident that it wouldn't really affect his average.
 * This troper has a friend that gets upset when she once in a blue moon gets less than an A. She has also played into this trope by arguing with a teacher over getting a grade she felt she didn't deserve.
 * This troper never let grades in school bother him too much, but standardized tests are another matter. The first time he took the ACT, he got a 34 overall (out of a maximum of 36. At this point, it's mostly luck differentiating between the upper few points). So then he retook it and pushed up to a 35.
 * This troper scored a 29 in Missouri in 2006. At that time, scoring a 30 earned the tester a $2,000 a semester scholarship.
 * It's not such a bad thing, really. This troper was homeschooled, and the grading system was "A, B, Do The Whole Set Again (No, You Can't Just Fix The Ones You Got Wrong)", which was frustrating and led to tears and the temporary conviction that she'd never pass algebra, but got her into college two years early and she is doing quite well now that she knows that she's been ahead the whole time. Well, except algebra. But she's mastered it and will do so for all math, so there, Leibniz!
 * This troper broke into tears after she was given a 3.9 out of 5.0 in the first science test of her 9th grade. It happened a few times more, until she realized the tests with that teacher would be really hard to pass. To the end of the ninth grade, she didn't care anymore. By the way, the first (and only) 5.0 she got in Science that year was in the last bimester, in a really easy Physics introduction test. It was a tearful year for a girl whose Elementary school averages had been at least 4.7, and in Middle School at least 4.5. Given that she will never do homework or study, she does realizes that she can't complain too much, but still...
 * This Italian troper still complains about the 14 out of 15 in one of the sections of her final exam in high school. She missed a perfect score because of one misplaced apostrophe.
 * This Troper's girlfriend has a problem with "odd-numbered grades that aren't divisible five." This coming from a girl whose lowest grade in the last trimester was a ninety-five. It's hard to take someone seriously when they'd rather get a 96 than a 97 or 99.
 * This troper got a 1470 the first time he took the SAT - that's 800 Verbal, 670 Math, out of a possible 800 in each (this was before there was a writing section). The guidance counsellor actually advised him not to take it again, because that was a really good score and it might look bad if he got a worse one (acknowledging that colleges are supposed to take the best, but apparently they still see how many times you've taken it, or... something). His response? "*** that, anything less than a 1600 is failing." The second time, he... didn't fail.
 * This Troper got the same advice about not taking it again after getting a 2140 on the new SAT, but she insisted on redoing it anyway because she felt ashamed of her 690 writing (partly because she's a writer). She feels totally vindicated, too, since the next time she got 2310, including a perfect verbal and a perfect essay.
 * This troper is a slight subversion, or a Deconstruction, depends on your point of view. He started out Grade School as a perfect student through the second grade, fell off his third grade year, returned to form in the Fourth Grade, then fell off again and the fifth, dropped into a downward spiral in the sixth, and has since stopped giving a ***. The reason? Too lazy to ever do homework. His test scores remain top notch, even in the math classes he slept through. He likes it way better in college, where homework doesn't generally factor into your grade.
 * This troper is glad to know that that's the case, as he's pretty much exactly the same.
 * This troper usually doesn't care as long as his grades are ok (or in some cases, not failed), but once he got pretty pissed off from missing an A by one point. Just one point!
 * This troper missed an A by three tenths (.3) of a point! Three tenths!
 * This troper missed an A* for GCSE Maths by 5/600 points, and will admit she cried over that. Less than one percent.
 * This troper got B's in his AS levels recently, and actually cried.
 * This troper spent far too much of his summer holiday panicking about how he was going to get far too many "B"s in his GCSE results and (Shock! Horror!) MIGHT EVEN ONLY GET AN A IN MATHS! (his best subject by a long way) He actually did get an A* in the end and was very relieved.
 * It didn't include a B grade, but something similar happened with this troper's sister. She needed 3 A's to get into the Uni of her choice, and she got three A's... and a U. When her dad complained to his friends at work about this, they all said he was being too hard on her, since she got all the grades she needed.
 * This troper has successfully subverted this trope. Early senior year, he was embarrassed with an 85. Two 67s were rather humbling, and taught the old maxim "F*** it, I'll re-read the material and do better next test."
 * I became like this out of necessity. Cranking up your GPA so you can go to Germany means getting less than 80% is NOT an option (grades in Mexico are percentile, you need at least 50% to pass). Now, try doing it in an engineering major, where even the greatest nerd feels he didn't do so bad with a 70%. Also, the Cisco Systems CCNA certification exams, where anything less than 80% means FAIL.
 * Whenever I find that my grade for the semester is less than an A, I get all mad and stuff. Although, since getting an A means not taking my finals, I feel this is justified.
 * This troper's best friend has broken down crying because of an A-. And we're college seniors.
 * This troper got a 98% on a test. It was irksome not because 100% was the goal, but because he was dying to find out what the 2% deduction was for. As it turned out, the teacher didn't know the answer was correct (more than one approach was possible). He had to pull out the course textbook to prove him wrong. If I was grading a paper where someone apparently got everything absolutely right except for this bit I didn't understand, I'd find out what it meant rather than marking it down.
 * And then there was the time where an enthusiastic teacher apologized for being unable to give a perfect grade, since there was one answer that was undeniably wrong. Surpisingly the teacher was more bothered than the student.
 * This troper just barely ended up with a "C" on his mid-term exam in Calculus in his senior year of High School. That grade stung worse than (almost) any grade before because it was just barely off of the minimum for a B. Like, 78.67% or something. Even worse, that C on the mid-term affected the grade for the first two quarters of the year such that the first half of the year was also just barely under a B. That really stings. This troper ended up getting a "B" by the end of the year, though. No final exam for me!
 * This troper has never really cared about his grades except for one thing-his parents *** about them. While, yes, he did not do well in middle school algebra (very lazy+lotsa homework=D's), he nearly exploded when they commented on his ACT score. Now, understand this — this troper is good at taking tests, just naturally good, and never studies. He made no preparation for the test, and still got a 31. This tropers parents response..."Imagine what you could have gotten if you'd studied!"
 * This troper is similar. Oh how I loathe those words. They wouldn't happen to be familiar with the principle of vastly diminishing returns, would they?
 * This troper doubts it. Those words also make his list of the Top 100 things Parents say that hurts/annoys their kids.
 * Does '***' mean 'ask'?
 * It probably means "female dog"
 * As generally laid-back as I was about this sort of thing - I asked teachers to deduct points when I felt that they had missed a mistake in one of my answers - my 1590 SAT score still annoys me to this day.
 * This troper has smashed his head through several rulers because he got one question wrong on a test. This troper has encountered people who are even more extreme; let's just say that one of my real-life encounters tried to slit his (or her, I'm not telling) wrists because he (or she) got a C+. Yeah.
 * Similarly (this troper would usually not note this, but the similarity just seemed uncanny and jarring, I apologize), a friend of this troper actually once told him that she would probably kill herself if she ever got a C or went to summer school. Due to the love/hate nature of the troper's opinions about her (mostly due to the fact that she's pretty much a real life Mary Sue) he barely restrained himself from replying with "then I hope you get a C on your next exam."
 * This troper's cousin had a 96.94 average through her three years of middle school. For some context, she was class valedictorian by over a percentage point. Her reaction upon finding out boiled down to "I wanted the 97."
 * This troper's ENTIRE CLASS was like this in high school. Anything less than a 90% was considered a miserable failure. After every assignment or test was returned, there would be a mad dash to the teacher to gain back a few percentage points unfairly (or even fairly) deducted - excepting, of course, the inevitable few perfect scores floating around. This troper in particular, while widely acknowledged as one of the smartest kids, is also known as one of the laziest; settling with a 95 instead of a 98 or 99 was fine by him if it came about after using the overwhelming majority of class time to play Tetris on his calculator (greatest "do you need anything new for school this year?" present EVER).
 * This troper (in fact, the same one who was so obsessive about the SATs, above) used to have fun hitting A grades by exactly 0.1%. He managed it in three different math classes (the easiest ones to fine-tune your grade in, 'cos there's so much homework and the answers aren't subjective).
 * This troper did cry in the fifth grade over getting a C in a science class. (There were only 3 grades in that quarter due to extreme laziness on the teacher's part, and though she got a hundred and five percent on one she was sick the day that both of the others were done, and was told by the teacher that there was no work that day.) Ahem. So maybe I'm still a little bitter about that one. However, every year from then on, I would have one B the whole year, which got to be a little frustrating after a while. I actually got my much desired year-long straight A's freshman year- and then the dreaded B returned to plague me sophomore year, in Algebra 2. However, I have two AP classes this year, my junior year, so it'll balance out. My parents aren't hard on me, but I have this kind of obsessive (and completely irrational) fear that if I don't get a 4.0 or better, I will be passed by for scholarships, not be able to attend college, and end up working at McDonald's instead of pursuing my lifelong dream of being a screenwriter and movie director. So Yeah...
 * This troper got 5s on every single AP test (13 total)... except one in his last year, where he got a 4. It was seriously annoying (AP tests in the States are out of 5 points, for a particular subject)
 * Almost the same thing happened to this troper. The only 4 he got was in English Literature, because he couldn't finish any of the essays.
 * This troper had the exact same thing happen, with a chain of 5s and a single 4. It was made worse because the entire thing was my own fault for not double-checking the sign-up sheet properly: I had signed up for, and thus studied for the wrong test before coming in.
 * Seriously, this happened to me too. I get to awe people with my huge string of '5's in what are traditionally considered the hardest A Ps, but only a 4 in Spanish Language. I hated that class so much. Fear and loathing in... North Carolina.
 * Though not overly concerned about grades, this troper was frustrated when he dropped below 100% combined on his Latin tests. That, and the first wrong.
 * This troper nearly became like this with a 45 out of 100 in a Graphics midterm (even though he wasn't the greatest student at Graphics - it was a filler subject - and it was a low grade). Luckily, he got 68 in the end-of-year, meaning he just passed the course. Since then, he's become ambivalent about study and grades, just so long as they're B or above (and, in certain contexts, B minuses will suffice - but C, a bridge I haven't yet come to, is OUT OF THE QUESTION).
 * On the other hand, this troper knows at least two people who fit this trope to a T. One became incredibly depressed by an A- and once famously stated the worse grade for her to get would be a 74 (a B+ - which this troper got a lot of that year); the other is obsessive about grades and has been known to cry when being beaten to an English prize (that this troper won) and harass a teacher to get them to up their grades by one or two percent.
 * This troper's middle school had the grading system of 4=A, 3=B etc and 95% or higher is a 4+.. In grade 8 she took her art very seriously, as she was trying out for an arts high school for next year. In that art class she got a 95%, and missed the award for best art mark by 1%. After comparing notes with the winner (who got in the same school this troper did) this troper discovered she got all 4+s in the class, and this troper got three 4s, the rest were all 4+s, and after one memorable project a 5 (somehow). So ya, this toper was a little saddened.
 * Inverted with This Troper: he is generally known as the local brain, but when he took his SAT and got a 1960, only his parents were disappointed.
 * Medical school. Just... medical school. This troper, with low standards, is subjected to this from colleagues on an hourly basis.
 * One girl in this troper's high school really did cry her way out of a B. She'd had straight-As all her life and was facing a B in junior English, and broke down in tears about it. Astonishingly, it worked, on a female teacher known for her toughness. (This troper graduated with a solid 2.5, and is therefore an aversion)
 * This troper spent all her years at college with a GPA eligible for magna cum laude... until the last quarter of her senior year, when one bad class bumped her down to cum laude just in time for graduation. It still hurts.
 * While This Troper fits the trope, he feels dumb after looking at all these examples and realizing he's happy with "only" a 90%.
 * This troper is experiencing this trope right now with her drawing class — no matter how much work she puts into her required artworks, she can never earn anything higher than a B. And since three out of six have been completed, and the final portfolio requires four of those works to be included... ARGH. Artistic mediocrity, here I come.
 * Update: After a bit of elbow grease and a hell of a final presentation, I finally got an A overall for my final drawing grade. And in a subversion, I got a B in algebra — and don't mind, because mathematics are my biggest weak spot and I'd be OVERJOYED to pass them.
 * One of this troper's classmates, who is currently sitting next to me, most likely reading this as I type, freaked out over getting an 88%. On a progress report, which didn't even matter.
 * In her freshman year of high school, this troper earned a 99% on her first semester biology final. She missed one question. To this day, she still has not forgiven herself.
 * This Troper had, in the last year of MYP and his first one in the International School system, a last science presentation about Dengue fever. The teacher, one of three, each in charge of a science, one for each semester, promised that if he did well, he'd get a six and would make a six on the final paper. He poured his lifeblood into this one presentation and did all apart from hiring a choir to sing beatifically upon each slide being projected... and got a five on the report. He shall never stop scorning the teacher, who moved to an International School in Spain after the year.
 * This troper used to slide by doing whatever he wanted, at one point almost failing a test(13/24 or something) and not bothering to correct for marks. This year, he sees he can get almost all As by barely trying (due to a loophole in which homework doesn't count for marks), so he trys harder to get that 84 up to an 86. Except in Home Ec. This troper can't sew.
 * Inversions exist at many colleges that don't differentiate much between grades (or don't report them to grad schools) — often times, students will aim for the lowest possible grade that's passing, and will be upset with a C+ rather than a C-. This troper has heard tales of a student who got all C-'s and one B, and was rather annoyed about it.
 * In middle school this troper met a friend who was tight-wound, and fit this trope to a "T". Meanwhile this troper gave up in middle school, at the end of middle school they had evened each other out a bit. In high school this troper's firned kept getting worse(as in caring less), until senior year when his friend would copy this troper's homework. There is nothing like corrupting good students.
 * Although not necessarily a paper-type of grade, this troper was competing in a regional music competition in 9th grade with 2 friends performing "Fugue for Tinhorns". We missed state by ONE POINT. I'm still bitter.
 * This troper knows a guy in in several of his college engineering courses that will run to the professor every time after getting his test back to start begging for more points. One time a professor got so annoyed with him that he deducted points for his begging and didn't give them back until he promised to leave him alone for the rest of the semester. On a later test that same professor gave everyone several extra points just to discourage such whining, which was a nice boon to those of us who didn't really care but were right on the edge of moving up a letter grade.
 * Subverted by this troper, who frequently received but hated As. As mean the curriculum wasn't challenging enough and you had no measure of you actual potential or grade level. I'd aim for As, of course, but generally hope that the curriculum was challenging enough to land me in the B or C range (in my school C was considered the average grade) as that meant the curriculum was at a good level for me to be learning effectively.
 * Throughout his school career, this Troper had a tendency to invert, subvert, and see this Trope get played straight. Inverted during Junior High, when this Troper simply didn't try and didn't mind 50/100s due to his not liking being called a "nerd" (a badge that he now wears proudly like a war medal). Subverted in the sense that he didn't try during high school, but chose courses that were in his field of nerdiness (history, geography and english), meaning that his marks were pleasantly high, while his preppy friends seemed insulted at this Troper's perceived insensitivity to their B grades ("Why should you get such good marks, ya don't study!"). Played straight by many friends who got 89s in math class. Incidentally, this Troper has Dyscalulia, making math the only course stream he actually put mega effort into, with less-than-desirable results. Continued to play straight when this Troper found that math kept his GPA right under 80 (the honor-role threshold at our school). Eventually, he got out of math when it stopped being manditory, causing his GPA to shoot up to Ontario-Scholar levels (although he pretended to not care).
 * In her entire middle and high school career, this troper only received one B on a report card, and freaked out. The class she didn't ace? Eighth-grad woodshop.
 * This troper can be like this, but only on subjects I like and am good at like the sciences. It's my parents that freak out if I get a B.
 * This Troper used follow through on this, one of the many occupational hazards of being "gifted and talented," and then came AP US History. And the pneumonia. Now he has much lower standards.
 * This troper once had a friend who was incredibly upset over a 107% in Biology. The highest possible was a 110% grade, only doable because of extra credit. He had a perfect extra credit, but lost the 3% on a test. I really wish I was making this up.
 * This troper's best friend melted down over an 89% in eighth-grade English, but the troper herself is even more guilty of the trope. In junior year, her friends were still talking about how she cried over a "bad" grade on a writing assignment at the beginning of freshman year...
 * This troper (pageless and not in any hurry) is a huge subversion. In grade school I was always ticked about the fact that I seemed to miss perfect on almost all of my tests by exactly one question — in hindsight this may have been a ploy to hide a bit of my intellect and look more 'normal', especially as I was picked on due to being a brain. In junior high, I lost interest in doing homework in favor of just watching TV, playing video games, and generally being a young teen loner in my room, though I still cared about D's and worse. By High school, this had reached full blown apathy for my grades as long as I was passing ("D is still passing mom!", but throughout this decline period my parents seemed to care more and more about my grades, because they "knew [I] could do better". This led to at least one major outburst where I accidentally destroyed the full body mirror in my bedroom, another where I needed to hit something (and luckily managed to leave the house before that something was a someone) and to the general belief that my parents have considered me a failure for more than half of my life. Now, in college, I only care about passing marks, but I put in some effort in the classes I really care about — like programming.
 * This troper's friend went apeshit when her final average was less than 85%. She is Asian. You are shocked.
 * To this troper, (the local equivalent of) B is usually acceptable, though nothing to be happy about. Except in English. A- can be attributed to carelessness, but the one B this troper has received in English reduced her to tears. She's still kind of bitter about it, because the parts she got wrong were about culture (English being a foreign language in these parts) which hadn't even been covered in class.
 * This troper heard a story in his senior social studies class (I forget the name, but it involved ancient civilizations). A parent got so pissed off after his son had a paper with a failing-looking grade on it (he failed to read that it would be redone for a better grade, no strings attached) because the kid was almost deathly sick that he actually shaved the kid's head with a straight razor, leaving all of those nasty cuts for a good part of the rest of the year. I'm not sure if action was taken against the parent, but if I were the teacher, I'd rip the guy ten new breathing holes. I myself don't really care about grades.
 * This Troper's parents have this attitude. Needless to say, it drives me crazy.
 * This troper, being one of the geeky crowd in all the Honors/AP classes, has to endure these from her friends every time report cards come out. She, however, has no problem with Bs.
 * This Troper got her grade card a couple of weeks ago. She was quite pleased because it was all A-A* kind of thing... except for English Language. I got a C. Subverted in the fact that my mother was more annoyed about it than I was.
 * This Troper goes to an IB school, which means the grades are out of 7. 7 is the highest. I don't really care if I get a five or something, but I have a friend who was freaking out about a 6. The stupid thing is, the mark counted for absolutely nothing!
 * I'm the class (and to a slightly lesser degree, by which I mean the outgoing seniors don't know me and everybody else, including the juniors above me, do, the school) brain. I get straight A's. However, it's become annoying when people, due to the mental image they build up of me, try to make a laughingstock out of me for one mistake. It's usually the time I break out a reason you suck speech. My favorites are the ones that mention the fact that I never said I knew everything, and only an idiot would attempt to hold somebody to that standard, or (if I'm feeling nicer) the speech about how, despite any mistakes I make, you still seem to think I'm some kind of god of intelligence, rather than somebody who actually, you know, made a mistake. Or I just trash them if I happen to have something personal against them.
 * At first I used to get pissed over "almost" grades, but as things got harder I just felt happy with doing well. Now, the only grade that truly irks me is my 797.5 math/language average in the university entry exam... an 800 would've given me a scholarship.
 * This troper's friend is absolutely ridiculous when it comes to assessing her grades. She once complained about her grades dropping... from ABOVE a hundred percent to slightly lower, but still above. From getting a hundred percent test score. She complained about getting a PERFECT SCORE. (in case you're wondering, her grade was that pumped up due to extra credit.)
 * High School Band Festivals for This Troper's class. We'd ALL be pissed if we didn't get a 1 when we felt we deserved it.
 * You don't happen to be me, do you? My high school band class was the exact same way, and three of us (me and two non-tropers...) are at the same college together.expect the other two to become tropers soon...
 * This troper's sister received two As and a B at Advanced Higher and was disappointed. This troper herself, on t'other hand, is a subversion: grades get treated with indifference as long as they're passing marks.
 * While not bothered by B's, this troper was sorely disappointed at getting a D in music, to the point of nearly dropping the subject. Fortunately Cambridge is ignoring it.
 * This troper wouldnâ€™t call herself a constant grade A student (far from it) but sheâ€™s always been proud of her writing ability. So imagine her annoyance when she comes to get her mark results for her second semester dissertation project: and discovers she got 69 points: a 2:1 grade. Which is actually pretty good for that level of study... but a 70 wouldâ€™ve been a 1:1 grade. She was one point off. Sheâ€™s still bitter about this.
 * This troper is getting thousands of dollars in free money for having a high GPA, so would be understandably upset about a B.
 * Not this troper, but a girl in her class two years ago. (Just so you know, our grades are a score of 1 to 10.) The girl in question got an 8 instead of her regular 9's and 10's. Note that said grade didn't even push down her average grade by more than .1 points. Especially annoying because people were allowed to do it over if they weren't pleased with the grade, she got the highest scoring grade and she cried about it, while most of us were happy with our shabby sixes. Ugh.
 * Raekuul needs to be a perfectionist this semester, or else he will lose his scholarship. Keep your eyes open for breakdowns. Made especially worse due to his Genius Slacker status.
 * This troper's English teacher gave her back a test while she was writing a test in maths, handing it to her maths teacher. Said maths teacher, being used to this troper's less-than-good grades and seeing her struggle with the test, showed her the B she got, commenting, "Does that cheer you up?" All this troper had to say was "No. I'm better at English than a B."
 * This troper was perfectly happy to get B's in school. His parents, however, not so much, and expected much better from him than to settle for a B. So this troper stopped trying altogether! That sure showed them.
 * This troper gets A's in math. On a unit-end test he got a sign error in his algebra, getting 99.7%. He BURNED that test in his fireplace.
 * This troper cannot allow herself to get anything under 8 out of 10. She'll tell everyone it's her mother who'd kill her if she gets anything lower than that, but it's pure bullshit. She spent a whole evening banging her head against her door, chanting, "I don't deserve to live! I should be hanged for this crime! I got a 7 in French!" She eventually calmed down when she realised her grade averages only counted toward university from age 16 onwards. (She was 14 at the time.)
 * This Troper was, if not hysterical, slightly miffed at getting 88% on an Ancient History test. Not at the grade itself (in Ancient History, that's a brilliantgrade), but that he came equal first instead of first outright. With the guy who got picked for school captain over him.
 * This troper used to play this one straight. In 9th and 10th grade, he would fight over every single lost point on a test or assignment, and cried at a B grade on an assignment. Then a good friend flat-out told him that he was best known to the rest of the school as a grade freak and that he needed to stop. This troper did so immediately, which led to an aversion in 11th grade. After taking 16 AP tests (which give a grade of 1-5, with 5 being the highest) and receiving a 5 on 15 of them, he got a 4 on the English Literature test. His reaction? "Eh, I figured that would happen."
 * This troper plays this one basically straight. She'll settle for an A- in a class but a B or lower is severely disappointing to her...except in math, of course, when she'll settle for a B or higher. But no, she does not cry over grades. (She might if she failed a class or something...)
 * Later and later into college this troper noticed that professors would downgrade slightly and make the student fight for their grade, that the only way to get the grade you deserve is by showing how serious you are with a well-reasoned argument. And though I wasn't an obsessive achiever by that point and pretty much comfortable with coasting on B's, sometimes I would do it simply for the principle of the fact that I earned the A. And every time I've confronted a professor over giving less than the grade I earned, I've gotten the grade.
 * In year 8, this troper received 88% on a maths exam (which was really tough, tougher than even the top student had counted on), and got a stern talking to from her teacher, telling her that her score was disapointing and she had to try harder next time. From then on, this troper's opinion of the teacher was that she could *** right off.
 * This Troper was very upset when she got back her GCSE grades to find that they were all either As or A*s, with one exception. However, she was more upset because the B was for English Lit (one of her favorite subjects, and one that she'd been predicted an A in) than because she hadn't got straight As (if it had been any other subject, she wouldn't have cared).
 * This Troper's dad was the proverbial "97%? What did you lose the 3% on?"
 * This Troper has to admit that she once cried over a single wrong answer on a French test (because it was the first time she'd gotten less than over 100 in that class, and she knew she deserved the point). Of course, she was also grounded once for having an 89 in math, so it's not all just personal pressure. She now considers herself "pretty laidback" because she doesn't make too big of a deal over grades so long as her overall grade for every class is in the A range.
 * This Troper's reaction upon getting a B is along the lines of "Meh. I'm disappointed, but I'll do better next time". This Troper's Mother's reaction upon getting a B, however, is a long lecture. I only wish I was as motivated to do well as the above tropers.
 * A lecture?! This troper's dad told her she 'could always clean toilets for a living!' And she was twelve!
 * This Troper was known for two things in primary school: extreme emotional reactions to trivial slights and significant intelligence (the former reputation was admittedly deserved, the latter...not so much). Naturally, this trope was expected to occur by classmates and teachers after receiving a C grade after years of straight As. Of course, this troper ended up shrugging it off as a fair cop instead.
 * This troper knows someone who complained about a High Honors on an English assignment(my school's equivalent to an A+) because someone whom he felt had put much less effort into the assignment got an H. He was upset that he got a HH on something when he could've done less and gotten the same grade, he felt.
 * Most American high schools will point out the top ten students in a graduating class. This troper graduated... 11th. Which is kinda like missing the A by 0.1%. It's a bit of a subversion in that she is aware that the "honor" is trivial, but remains curious to know how far behind #10 she was... and how much of an impact her decision to take only 2 AP classes (weighted GPA) made.
 * Considering that this troper shot from 11th to 4th once he started filling his schedule with A Ps... Rather a lot, I'd guess.
 * While this top student troper got inoculated to lower grades at a more formative age (didn't do so well in the elementary school GT program), he once was rather slow to leave a middle school class and overheard a classmate crying to her teacher about her first B ever.
 * I almost got grounded for getting a 89% in history. My friends freaked out, and then I got a lecture from my father.
 * Subversion: This troper's most common grade is A-, and getting lower than that doesn't bother him in the slightest.
 * This troper used to be this way throughout most of middle and high school, being disappointed over even an A-. It was only in her senior year of high school when she took almost all AP and honor classes did she learn to be happy to pull off a B in some classes. Now in college there are some higher level classes she's just happy to pass!
 * This troper knew a girl who was disappointed in getting 'only' a 100% on a test! There was an extra credit question she missed, which would have given her a 105%.
 * This troper cried the first time she got a B on her report card in middle school, and did the same when she got her first C. Now she feels lucky if she gets C's in any math or science class. Nowadays, a B in any of those classes = a very happy troper.
 * This troper was happy to get about a 69% in a hard maths exam(the top score being about 77%ish)but got a mini lecture from her mother about how she could have done better.
 * This troper got her exam results back, with the equivalent of As in almost every subject but with Bs in Maths and English. This troper was very, very disappointed.
 * This troper was really disappointed when she got her first B on her report card in 6th grade. Now, I'm fine if I get a B on my report card. I just hope that it doesn't go down to a C.
 * This trope is actually enforced upon the students at this troper's honors college program. If our Grade Point Average ever falls below 3.5 on a 4.0 scale we are dismissed from the program and we lose our scholarship money. Needless to say this troper is apprehensive about getting anything below an A.
 * This troper is one of the ones who has to admit to crying about a B... it was in 3rd grade, he had gone through 1st and 2nd getting straight As on every report card, and had no indication (at least, that could make it through his surprisingly thick skull) that he was doing any less than he ever did. So, come time to get his first report card for 3rd grade, and half the grades are Bs (the other half are As, of course). Cue this troper cowering on the hearth as his mother reads the card, crying because he thinks she's going to beat him.
 * This troper has a friend who subverted the trope. He had a 4.0 going in Computer Science. After reading an article that said many companies don't like to hire 4.0 students because they tend to be "too" smart, he intentionally got a B in a class to bring down his GPA.
 * This troper knows someone who was a genius in physics. He earned his BS in three years and continued his education at MIT. In his entire college career, he got one B - in a phys ed class because of absences.
 * In school, this doesn't happen with me, but stick me in any game with gold medals or whatever, such as burnout, I just can't help myself. My brother tends to be a scapegoat when things go wrong.
 * This troper was a 100% student when she was in Venezuela but when she came to Canada and with the new language her Grades dropped from 100% to 60s and 70s it was horrible, but then she realized that it didn't hurt, it wasn't that bad, so now she doesn't care about the marks and slacks off a bit, pretty much a B+ student and her average is 87% thanks to religion and P.E (an atheist in a catholic school, not good).So Yeah
 * This troper was one of these back in secondary school. She got ill from stress, missed most of her GCSE coursework as a result and was upset about getting an A in math instead of an A*.
 * At this troper's school: A=Average, B=Bad, C=Community college, D=Disowned, and F=Fuck you, why are you still living? This Troper wishes she were kidding but with 48.7% of the student population being Asian and the average SAT score of 1800 (the national average is 1500 BTW)-she is not. And this is not even including the stigma that a 2250 on the SAT's is a "poor score"...
 * This tropers parents are like this about grades a lot more than I am, and it drives me nuts (FYI I'm a senior). I think that having a B average is perfectly fine, especially since its mostly a not-doing-homework thing. A 28 on ACT means that I should also be a shoe-in for most universities also, if my cousin is to be believed. That said, if I actually care about something, then this very much applies, even if its a non-school thing.
 * To this troper, anything lower than a B+ is a fail. But I'd like to think I'm not as bad as some of the kids in my AP English Literature class. I overheard one girl bitching about getting a 97 on her Spanish test and wanted to headdesk.
 * This lurker only gets upset over a grade when she thinks she could have done better. Unfortunately, this includes driving herself insane by studying when she doesn't believe she has to (and is usually justified by her grades) or when she gets a late assignment because she happens to actually NEED TO SLEEP. She's pretty much the only one who ever worries about her grades.
 * This troper was depressed by a 98% on an AP Chem test. Admittedly, most people in the class get Cs on tests, but he was almost certain he'd gotten a perfect score and his mistakes were very silly (Forgetting the 'II' in 'Copper II Oxide' and calling calling 'Fluorine Pentoxide' 'Fluoride Pentoxide').
 * This troper cried when she got home after finding out she received a B in AP Physics. Still disapointed.
 * I used to get straight As. Then I learned how to procrastinate properly. I get a load of B's. I swear to God it has nothing to do with me being in Community College.
 * Ironically, some Stanford students bitched that the courses here were harder than Stanford fare here.
 * Fun fact: He's also Asian. Well, Filipino, but goddamnit what is the difference except for being moar related to asian indians
 * I had a really hard time with getting a B+ last semester in Spanish 111. What disappointed the most was knowing how proud my mother was of me last semester with a 4.0 GPA that she would tell all of her friends about it and that, despite her denials, I knew she was disappointed.
 * Averted, in my case. I was distraught after failing a test. I cried, and was too afraid to check my grade, because it had been a major test. I finally checked my grade and even with the failed test added in, I was still getting over 100%. I was then embarrassed for pitching such a big fit.
 * This Guy's sister was classmate of two... um... "famous" twins in the school. You see, they were identical twins, both of them pretty good at sports, and first and second place in a national science contest. One of them once got a 6.8 out of 7.0 (roughly between A- and A) in one class, and they both decided to do an extra credit homework in order to get the 7.0. Even though only one of them needed it. And it didn't make a real difference in their perfect report card. I still wonder what's up with them...
 * This Troper's friend is this full stop. He complained about how he was failing Chemistry when we was getting only an A-, while his friend sitting right next to him legitimately was failing. This Troper also subverted it himself. He broke down crying when he failed honors Precalc and went back to academic where he was getting straight A's, and his friends assumed it was no big deal. However, the whole episode really hurt because of a deep emotional conflict dealing with ADhD and an inferiority complex. I honestly didn't care about the grade itself.
 * This troper's school uses online gradebook that allows you to see your current grade and what assignments you have. The quarter grades are not cumulative and are what your current grade is at the end of the term. Unfortunately, this troper's parents now have access to the site and check it on a daily basis to question every grade that the troper gets. D:
 * Many, many Asian students; particularly if you're a first generation immigrant.
 * This troper's father had a korean girl in his honor's class, who, according to him, worked her butt off and got an B in the class. However, her mother came into class, and in broken English said, "B no good, what she do to get A?" His father jokes that this is why the rest of the world is kicking our butt educationwise.
 * A solid B isn't the worst grade. A "barely losing" B+ is though. That is, an 89%. Or an 89.4% if they round up.
 * Try 89.99%. Seriously, the .4 points between a B+ (3.3) and an A- (3.7) is the largest number in the entire world...except that .01% that fucked you over.
 * This Troper ran to the door crying when she got her first B at 2nd grade.
 * The possibly worst feeling in the world is getting a 85.4% (86% and above is an A) for this troper; sometimes, this troper believes teachers give out such a grade just to torture students.
 * This troper vaguely remembers her younger sister having a tantrum for getting a "4" grade(on a sliding scale of 1-6, with 6 being the best).
 * That's 67%. In other words: a D.
 * While 67% may be worrying in the US, in Germany a "3" grade (on a sliding scale 1-6 where 1 is the best) is perfectly acceptable.
 * A 92 out of 100 doesn't sound that bad, right? This troper has an acquaintance who actually started crying about it.
 * You think that's bad? This troper's friend cried because she got her first 99 (out of 100) on her test in Chinese school. Some people need to appreciate life more.
 * This Troper's younger sister's French group, who consider anything lower than, not just an A, but an A* to be failing (and not only that, but a good A*, not just the minimum for one). In fairness, they are the 'Fast Track' group, and therefore the very best at French in their year.
 * Perfectionists suffer from this, in everything they do. This tropers cousin will be upset if she gets 98 marks out of 100 in a maths test.
 * This troper took an SAT pretest freshman year of highschool and passed. His grandfather was more interested in why I did worse in math than language.
 * Do you know what it's like to score a 1590 on the (older) SA Ts? This troper does. So does anyone who was nearby when she opened the envelope.What's worse is due to the (older) scoring conventions, it's actually more unlikely to score a 1590 than a perfect 1600 or a seemingly lower 1580. That was no comfort.
 * This troper was a straight A student in middle school hoping to apply to a prestigious and extremely selective high school. When she found out she got a B+ in one subject, she broke down into hysterics, couldn't face her parents for a week, and couldn't think about it since without hyperventilating. Spoiler: she moved away before she could apply to the school and ended up in another one where they accepted you as long as you could pay for it.'Devastated' does not even cover it.
 * This troper is currently able to pay for college almost exclusively through merit-based scholarships. Lemme tell ya, getting a "B" is very stressful when dropping your GPA below 3.5 will literally cost you tens of thousands of dollars...
 * This Troper has gotten progressively anal about her grades as she nears the completion of high school, especially if it is a subject where she should be doing better (Such as English. She understands all the concepts and topics, but she is unable to do well on the book tests for the simple fact that she can not remember minute details about the characters and settings in the books.). She won't freak about having a B, but she will be severely unhappy.
 * Not actually a letter grade, per se, but This Troper had a similar experience in an acting class. We were practicing interpreting our characters, and when I asked the teacher where my performance was at, she told me it was 'pretty good'. We then proceeded to have a lengthy discussion in front of everyoneabout how I felt that 'pretty good' does NOT qualify as constructive criticism, with her all the while acting as if I had turned my nose up to an A. I'm sorry, but in my book, 'pretty good' equals something like a midrange B. But apparently that's the best she can come up with. Why, yes, I'm still upset about it.
 * As a straight A student, this troper can't stand Bs. The most recent example is looking online to see her honors history (a class that is easy, so she doesn't really try hard) grade, and saw that it was a B, and CRIED (which surprised her)! Then, she realized it was a mistake. Changed that 88.5% to 91.5%, the next day. But still, only an A-...
 * A subversion: in this troper's seventh grade history class (which she had an absurdly high grade in because of an absurdly easy and large amount of extra credit), she failed a quiz. The guy next to her (pretty much always got a worse grade), got a higher grade than her by about three points (still a fail). He pointed out this troper's failure to her. Her response: "So?" She thought it was pretty funny how he expected her to get all worked up over that.
 * This Irish Troper took his Leaving Certificate exam about 6 years ago. The basic gist of this exam, is that the results you get are given as points, which are then used to determine which college course you're eligible for. This Troper missed his first choice course by 5 points (Scored 455, needed 460/600). The worst part was that this happened because of a 95% score in Physics. The only way to get a 95% score in Physics (at the time) was by missing the correct units-type at the end of an answer. e.g. putting down 100 instead of 100Litres. Needless to say This Troper was gutted
 * This troper tries, but can never quite write an English essay properly. Considering three of my seven classes were English, with the same teacher, this presented a problem. She felt extremely humiliated every time she got an essay back, very rarely achieving even 90%. Thankfully when it comes to writing stories, this troper always got good marks.
 * Averted in my case. I always got straight A's, and when I got a C- in biology, everyone was eagerly awaiting my meltdown (I was considered The Scrappy by a few kids in my grade), but I was happy with it. A C- is a good grade for a test that you didn't even read the text book for.
 * Mostly averted in this troper's case. Mostly. My senior year of high school, I essentially coasted through without working much, and still aced every subject. My second, third, and fourth quarters I had a 90% or more in EVERY CLASS except economics - in which I got 89s. For THREE FRAKKING QUARTERS. I didn't really care, because my average was hovering around a 95% anyway, but still, I was ONE FRAKKING POINT away from straight As for the first and only time in my life for three goddamn quarters. I still hold a grudge against my teacher for that one, as no amount of complaining or reasoning would change his mind.
 * Heavilly subverted with this troper, I used to get so many good grades not only my parents didn't congratulate me anymore, I likedtaking less than 95 of 100 because it was a change. My grades started going down at high school, because not only I not only didn't study out of class at all and even slept during classes, I made three copies of every answer as small as I could to send around the classroom, and only mattered to me because in my school you can skip the final exams if your combined scores of the three first bimesters and an extra exam is equal or above 320. Even then, only a problem because of History and Geography, my worst subjects, that needed some study the night before the exams.
 * The other top student of the class, however, bawled her eyes out when she got 98 of 100 in an exam. Partially justified because, unlike me, she not only studied outside class, but spent almost all of her free-time at it. Almost everyone that wasn't also around the high-tier grades and merolled eyes.
 * This troper comes from a school where 70% is a perfectly acceptable grade and 80% is considered very good (This applies to the entire country. A grade average of over 90% is practically unheard of). So the first time she heard an American friend complain about getting less than 95%, she had to rub her eyes to check if she was reading it right, and even now she has trouble getting used to it.
 * This troper was once dissapointed with a 86% grade in computer science, and was immedietly accused of this by most of the class which has gotten less. What they failed to remember was that in most other subjects that year where most of them had gotten 90+ grades, he got 60-80 and was quite content, it's just that damnit, I could have aced computer science. (and I later did)
 * This troper's report card for the first semester of freshman year (high school) came back with a C in P.E. and a B in French. Other than that, it was all A's. The C? I couldn't care less. The B? I was very close to crying. The letter only matters to me if I like the class.
 * And one more: In middle school, I very nearly broke down in tears when my GPA slipped from 4.0 to 3.9, unweighted. (With how it was calculated, that means tears over getting less than 97%. Yeah, I was a perfectionist back then.)
 * This troper, after getting a C on a bio test(in a class she later realized was really damn hard), cried in the hallway. She's very used to high grades, so it hurts to realize that she screwed up big time. She's getting better, but lower grades in any subjects but math and chemistry really sting. Actual failures mean I dwell on them all day and cry.
 * In this troper's school, we do our Science GCS Es in modules. The first set was fine: she got an A* in Biology, and As in Physics and Chemistry. However, for the second set, her A* in Biology dropped down to a B. This troper's mother is a Biologist and demanded to know where she'd gone wrong. And, to put the topper on it, this troper had just applied to do Biology (among other subjects) at A-Level. Upset doesn't cover it. It's the effects of going to a Grammar school: As and A*s are the norm, and getting Bs automatically makes one feel like a complete failure.
 * It took a while for my friends to convince me that getting 2 marks short of an A in a A-level Maths module that I taught myself was still a good achievement. I should stress that they were successful.
 * Should I even put this here? Okay, I will. I got grounded for a year and almost got my computer tossed out for having one "B", AND scoring one point short on a state test. What the fuck-fucking hell is fucking wrong with my dad?!?!?
 * This Troper knows someone who, on an IB HL Math Placement Test, got a 20.5/30, and was mad about it. Now, getting above a fifteen means that you are qualified for HL, and he had the second highest grade, by a large margin on both sides (This troper upped him by six and a half, third was an 18), and that only twelve people got above the margin, this applies good.