Web-Dev-For-Beginners/2-js-basics/3-making-decisions/assignment.md

Making Decisions: Student Grade Processor

Learning Objectives

In this assignment, you'll practice the decision-making concepts from this lesson by building a program that processes student grades from different grading systems. You'll use if...else statements, comparison operators, and logical operators to determine which students pass their courses.

The Challenge

You work for a school that recently merged with another institution. Now you need to process student grades from two completely different grading systems and determine which students are passing. This is a perfect opportunity to practice conditional logic!

Understanding the Grading Systems

First Grading System (Numeric)

• Grades are given as numbers from 1-5
• Passing grade: 3 and above (3, 4, or 5)
• Failing grade: Below 3 (1 or 2)

Second Grading System (Letter Grades)

• Grades use letters: A, A-, B, B-, C, C-
• Passing grades: A, A-, B, B-, C, C- (all listed grades are passing)
• Note: This system doesn't include failing grades like D or F

Your Task

Given the following array allStudents representing all students and their grades, construct a new array studentsWhoPass containing all students who pass according to their respective grading systems.

let allStudents = [
  'A',    // Letter grade - passing
  'B-',   // Letter grade - passing  
  1,      // Numeric grade - failing
  4,      // Numeric grade - passing
  5,      // Numeric grade - passing
  2       // Numeric grade - failing
];

let studentsWhoPass = [];

Step-by-Step Approach

1. Set up a loop to go through each grade in the allStudents array
2. Check the grade type (is it a number or a string?)
3. Apply the appropriate grading system rules:
   • For numbers: check if grade >= 3
   • For strings: check if it's one of the valid passing letter grades
4. Add passing grades to the studentsWhoPass array

Helpful Code Techniques

Use these JavaScript concepts from the lesson:

• typeof operator: typeof grade === 'number' to check if it's a numeric grade
• Comparison operators: >= to compare numeric grades
• Logical operators: || to check multiple letter grade conditions
• if...else statements: to handle different grading systems
• Array methods: .push() to add passing grades to your new array

Expected Output

When you run your program, studentsWhoPass should contain: ['A', 'B-', 4, 5]

Why these grades pass:

• 'A' and 'B-' are valid letter grades (all letter grades in this system are passing)
• 4 and 5 are numeric grades >= 3
• 1 and 2 fail because they're numeric grades < 3

Testing Your Solution

Test your code with different scenarios:

// Test with different grade combinations
let testGrades1 = ['A-', 3, 'C', 1, 'B'];
let testGrades2 = [5, 'A', 2, 'C-', 4];

// Your solution should work with any combination of valid grades

Bonus Challenges

Once you complete the basic assignment, try these extensions:

1. Add validation: Check for invalid grades (like negative numbers or invalid letters)
2. Count statistics: Calculate how many students pass vs. fail
3. Grade conversion: Convert all grades to a single numeric system (A=5, B=4, C=3, etc.)

Rubric

Criteria	Exemplary (4)	Proficient (3)	Developing (2)	Beginning (1)
Functionality	Program correctly identifies all passing grades from both systems	Program works with minor issues or edge cases	Program partially works but has logical errors	Program has significant errors or doesn't run
Code Structure	Clean, well-organized code with proper if...else logic	Good structure with appropriate conditional statements	Acceptable structure with some organizational issues	Poor structure, difficult to follow logic
Use of Concepts	Effectively uses comparison operators, logical operators, and conditional statements	Good use of lesson concepts with minor gaps	Some use of lesson concepts but missing key elements	Limited use of lesson concepts
Problem Solving	Shows clear understanding of the problem and elegant solution approach	Good problem-solving approach with solid logic	Adequate problem-solving with some confusion	Unclear approach, doesn't demonstrate understanding

Submission Guidelines

1. Test your code thoroughly with the provided examples
2. Add comments explaining your logic, especially for the conditional statements
3. Verify output matches expected results: ['A', 'B-', 4, 5]
4. Consider edge cases like empty arrays or unexpected data types

💡 Pro Tip: Start simple! Get the basic functionality working first, then add more sophisticated features. Remember, the goal is to practice decision-making logic with the tools you learned in this lesson.