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Blank, zero and excused are three different cells

A blank leaves both totals alone, a 0 counts against them, and an excused cell is out of both. They compute differently.

One answer, with what teachers ask next on the same screen underneath it.

  • Say whether it helped at the bottom of the article. That is the only way we learn it is wrong.
  • Anything in a green box is what the DepEd order says; anything in amber is where teachers get caught.

The three states

  • Blank — nothing recorded. The activity is out of both the points earned and the total. The cell shows nothing.
  • 0 — a real score. It is in the total and earns nothing, so it pulls the percentage down.
  • Excused — deliberately out of both sums. The cell shows – on a shaded background. It neither helps nor hurts.

The line under the grid says the same thing: A blank cell is not encoded · 0 is a real zero · – is excused.

Setting each one

  1. Blank. Clear the cell and press Enter. It goes back to not encoded.
  2. Zero. Type 0 and press Enter.
  3. Excused. Type X and press Enter. ex, excused and - do the same thing.

Which to use

Leave it blank while you have not checked the paper yet. Type 0 when the learner sat the activity and scored nothing, or did not hand it in and that is the mark. Mark it excused when the learner was excused from it and should not be measured on it at all.

What it does to the arithmetic

Each component is the sum of the raw scores divided by the sum of the total points, times 100. A blank and an excused cell are out of both sums. A zero is in the total but adds nothing to the raw — which is why a zero and a blank produce different grades from the same paper.

Checking what you set

Open Explain this grade on the learner. Every activity is listed as not encoded, excused, or its raw score over its total. It also says what the zeros are costing: 2 zeros cost 6.4 points of the initial grade. Excused instead, the term grade would be 88.

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