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I have been wanting to know the answer to this for a very long time but have come up against none. Looking at my undergrad results from a few years ago, one of the assignment marks is down as B?+. What exactly does this mean? Is it somewhere between a B and a B+? I remember hearing it pronounced as "query plus".

Bryan Krause
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C26
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  • What country did you do your undergrad? – Pat Devlin Jan 22 '17 at 12:52
  • This was in the UK. – C26 Jan 22 '17 at 13:09
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    Probably a typo? – Coder Jan 22 '17 at 14:32
  • Have you asked your instructor or undergraduate office? – E.P. Jan 22 '17 at 14:44
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    Not a typo, it's on the official transcript and as I say, I've heard it mentioned before. I could ask the office, indeed. It's certainly unusual. – C26 Jan 22 '17 at 15:10
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because we can't answer this question, but your school can. – aparente001 Jan 23 '17 at 05:28
  • I'm surprised, I would have thought it was a little more common. Maybe not. If no-one knows I'll contact them at some point soon. – C26 Jan 23 '17 at 11:25
  • At my university and department, the required grade for completing preliminary courses is B- . As giving lower than a B- can severely impact someones funding (and plans for graduation), some professors have resorted to giving B-* to poorly performing students in order to not ruin their academic careers. I wonder if your B?+ arose out of a similar system. – PVAL Jan 24 '17 at 22:46

1 Answers1

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As far as I can tell, this is an Oxford (or maybe Oxbridge) thing.

From Too Many Words – A Life in the Law 8:

The Oxford system in 1962 marked scripts by classifying students into alpha, beta, gamma, and then, within each class, adding plus or minus, or double plus or minus, or triple plus or minus, and in between using query to further distinguish. So the available range of marks ran downwards – alpha triple plus, alpha double plus query plus, alpha double plus, alpha plus query plus, alpha plus, alpha query plus, alpha, alpha query minus, alpha minus, alpha minus query minus, alpha double minus, alpha double minus query minus, alpha triple minus, alpha beta, beta alpha, beta triple plus etc.

So B?+ is between B+ (which is higher than B?+) and B (lower than B?+).

Other references: Oxbridge: beta-minus-minus

ff524
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    There comes a point when just giving a numeric score seems justified... – Fomite Jan 24 '17 at 07:34
  • Yes, this seems to be the most logical answer. I would have thought that B+ and B were enough, but the academic obsession with incremental accuracy apparently extends to grades too [at times]. Thank you for that. – C26 Jan 24 '17 at 10:22
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    There also comes a point when granularity in grading goes beyond the possible accuracy. Unless this was for an all multiple choice and true/false test, I question our ability to grade to that level of specificity. But nice answer, direct, concise and to the point. I give you an A+^! for quality of answer. –  Jan 24 '17 at 23:12
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    Anyone else reminded of George Orwell's 1984 and "doubleplusungood" by that grading scheme? – tonysdg Jan 25 '17 at 02:16