Academic grading in Italy

There are two grading systems used in Italy:

To someone familiar with both the Italian and the U.S. college systems, Italian grades are best translated into American grades (and vice versa) according to the following table:

Scuola primaria, scuola secondaria di primo e secondo grado

In Italian primary and secondary school a 10-point scale is used, 6 being the minimum grade for passing.

Traditionally in the most prestigious high schools (Liceo Classico, Liceo Scientifico and Liceo Linguistico), grades vary within a limited range, between 2 and 8, often with each professor applying his/her own custom. When a professor wants to apply a more precise scale, instead of using the full 1–10 scale (which would have made their scale not comparable with that of other professors) they would often insert a plethora of symbols and decimals: the range between 5 and 6 would then be covered, in sequence, by 5+, 5½ and 6−. Sufficiency starts at 6. The "+" symbol stands for "+0.25" (5+=5.25) and the "-" symbol stands for "-0.25" (6-=5.75). Some professors, however, also use symbols such as 5++, 5/6 and 6--, which have no precise value. There has been a push in recent years to uniform the system to the 0–10 scale.

University

For ordinary exams, universities in Italy use a 30-point scale that can be divided into failing (0 to 17) and passing (18 to 30 cum laude) grades. For final assessment of the entire degree, a 110-point scale is used, which is divided into two as well, with 66 being the minimum for a degree to be awarded. The 110-point scale incorporates scores both on course exams and for the final thesis. For outstanding results, lode, "praise" or "cum laude," is added to the maximum grade.

References

• "Grading System in Italy". ClassBase. Retrieved 22 February 2014.