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How Many Questions Can I Miss and Still Get an A?

The answer depends on two things: the percentage your grading scale requires for each letter, and how many questions the test contains. The tables below assume a common scale where 90% is an A, 80% a B, and 70% a C. Your school may use different boundaries, so treat the numbers as a starting point rather than a promise.

The formula behind every number on this page

Every answer here comes from one short piece of arithmetic. If a test has T questions and you miss W of them, your score is:

Score = (T − W) ÷ T × 100

To turn that around and ask how many misses a target grade allows, multiply the total by the share of the test you are allowed to lose and round down:

Max misses = floor(T × (100 − target) ÷ 100)

Rounding down matters. On a 25-question test, a 90% target allows 2.5 misses on paper — but you cannot miss half a question, so the real limit is 2. Missing a third question puts you at 88%, which is a B on most scales. That single rounding step is why students who do the mental math quickly often overestimate how much room they have.

Why the answer changes with test length

Each question on a 10-question quiz is worth 10 percentage points, so one mistake drops you to 90% and two mistakes to 80%. On a 100-question exam a single question is worth one point, so ten misses still leave an A. Shorter assessments are simply less forgiving.

This is worth remembering when you look at a low quiz score and panic. A 70% on a 10-question warm-up means three careless mistakes. A 70% on a 100-question final means thirty. The letter is identical; the amount of missing knowledge is not. Teachers who weight every assessment equally in a gradebook can accidentally let a five-question exit ticket swing a grade as much as a unit test — one reason most courses use weighted categories instead.

Plus/minus scales change the counts

The tables above use whole-letter boundaries. Many high schools and most colleges use plus/minus grading, where an A− starts at 90%, an A at 93%, and an A+ at 97%. Under that scale, a 25-question test gives you one miss for a solid A (96%) and two for an A− (92%). A 20-question test gives you one miss for a 95% A and two for a 90% A−; a third miss lands you at 85%, a B.

Some courses go the other way with a 7-point scale where anything from 93% to 100% is an A and 85% to 92% is a B. On a 50-question test that scale allows three misses for an A instead of five. Before you plan around any of these numbers, confirm the bands your course actually uses on the grading scale chart.

Partial credit and unequal question weights

The tables assume every question is worth exactly one point. Real tests often are not built that way. A test might have 20 multiple-choice questions worth one point each and two short-answer questions worth five points each, for 30 points total. In that case counting questions tells you nothing useful — you need to count points.

When points differ, work in points rather than questions: divide the points you earned by the points possible. Missing one five-point short answer on that 30-point test costs you 16.7%, the same as missing five multiple-choice items. If your teacher awards half credit, count the half. The Easy Grader accepts decimal values for exactly this reason, and how to calculate grades walks through mixed-format assignments in detail.

What this means when you are studying

Use these tables to set a realistic goal, not to plan how much to get wrong. A useful habit is to check the miss budget before the test and then aim one below it: if an A allows two misses, study to miss one. That buffer absorbs the misread question, the bubbling error, and the answer you second-guessed at the last minute — the mistakes that have nothing to do with what you know.

It also helps to know what a single test can and cannot do to your course grade. If tests are 40% of your grade and you have five of them, one test is 8% of the final number. Losing ten points on it costs you 0.8 percentage points overall. The final grade calculator shows the same effect in reverse when you are working out what you need on an upcoming exam.

Check your grading scale first

If your course requires 93% for an A, or uses plus/minus grading, the counts above change. Compare your own scale on the grading scale page, then check any specific score with the Easy Grader. If your teacher rounds 89.5% up to an A, read how grade rounding works before you count on it — rounding is a policy choice, and plenty of gradebooks simply truncate.

Limitations of these tables

• They assume equally weighted, one-point questions and no partial credit.
• They use a 10-point scale. Plus/minus, 7-point, and standards-based scales produce different counts.
• They describe one assessment, not your course grade. A single test is usually a fraction of the final number.
• They ignore curves, dropped lowest scores, retakes, and extra credit, all of which your teacher may apply after scoring.