Teachers can enable partial credit to award students points for partially correct answers rather than using all-or-nothing scoring.
How partial credit works for students
When partial credit is enabled, students can earn a fraction of the total points for multi-part questions. For example, if a question has three blanks and a student answers two correctly, they’ll receive 67% credit.
Students will see a partial credit icon next to questions where they earned some points but not full credit.
If partial credit is not enabled, students will only see traditional correct or incorrect scoring.
Students will see partial credit results based on the assignment’s explanation settings:
Show answers after each question: Students see partial credit immediately after submitting each question.
Show answers after due date or after submission: Students will see partial credit only after the due date has passed or after submitting the assignment.
Once an assignment is submitted, the overall score will reflect any partial credit earned.
How partial credit is calculated
Partial credit awards students points for partly correct answers. The exact calculation depends on the question type:
Fill in the Blank
Students earn credit for each blank they answer correctly.
Example: If a question has 5 blanks and a student gets 3 correct, they earn 3 ÷ 5 = 60%.
Free Entry
Students earn credit for each input they answer correctly.
Example: If there are 3 answers to enter and a student gets 2 right, they earn 2 ÷ 3 = 67%.
Graphing
Students earn credit for each correct graph element they plot.
Example: If 3 points are expected and a student correctly plots 2 of them, they earn 2 ÷ 3 = 67%. If the student adds extra points (for example, a 4th incorrect point), no partial credit is awarded for that question.
Multiple Choice – Multi Select
Students earn credit for correctly checking or leaving unchecked each option.
Example: Below, there are 2 correct answers, and four answer choices. If a student correctly selects 2 options and incorrectly selects 1, their score is (4 – 1) ÷ 4 = 75%.
Passage Correction
Students earn credit for each correction they make correctly.
Example: If there are 2 total corrections and the student fixes 1 correctly, they earn 1 ÷ 2 = 50%.
Snippet Selection
Students earn points for each correct text selection, but lose points for incorrect selections.
Example: If there are 3 correct snippets and the student selects all 2 but misses the third, incorrect one, they earn 2 ÷ 3 = 67%.
Two-Way Tables (Check-All-That-Apply Tables)
Students earn credit for each checkbox they mark correctly or leave blank correctly.
Example: If the table has 6 rows (12 total checkboxes) and a student correctly checks 4 boxes and correctly leaves 6 unchecked, they’ve answered 10 out of 12 correctly. Their score would be 10 ÷ 12 = 83%.
Free Response
Students earn credit for each rubric criterion you mark as met when you grade the response. Partial credit is always on for FRQs and cannot be turned off.
Example: If a response is worth 4 rubric criteria and you mark 3 as met, the student earns 3 ÷ 4 = 75%.
Multiple Choice – Single Select
Partial credit is not awarded. Students must select the single correct answer to earn points.
How to enable partial credit for assignments
Teachers can enable or disable partial credit in the assignment settings. This setting applies to all students in the assignment.
Note: You cannot set partial credit at the class or individual student level. This toggle controls auto-graded questions only. It does not affect FRQs, which you always grade with partial credit on.
To enable partial credit on an existing assignment:
Click the Home tab, and click Assignments under Classwork.
Choose an assignment, then click the three-dot menu (⋮) to the right.
Select Edit Recipient Settings.
Toggle Award partial credit on.
Click Save Changes.
Once enabled, students’ results for that assignment will be scored using partial credit.
How to enable partial credit for Independent Practice
Teachers can also enable partial credit for independent practice results.
To enable partial credit for independent practice:
Select your class from the Home tab using the All Classes dropdown menu.
Select Subjects under Classwork.
Click Independent Practice.
Choose a subject and click the gear icon.
Find the Enable Partial Credit toggle.
Switch it on.
When enabled, students will see partial credit applied in their independent practice results.
Note: By default, partial credit is off for all subjects.
How to view partial credit in Reports
Use the Partial credit menu in Reports to choose how scores are read. By default, it uses each assignment's own setting, and you can switch the view without changing anyone's grade.
To view partial credit in reports:
Go to the Reports tab and click View Report for your class.
Locate the Partial Credit dropdown in the top bar.
Choose how partial credit is applied in the report:
As students see it: shows each result using that assignment's partial-credit setting.
For all attempts: recalculates grades and accuracy to include partial credit, rounded to the nearest whole number.
For no attempts: shows scores without partial credit.
Note: Adjusting the filter in Reports does not change student scores within their original assignments. It only adjusts how results are displayed to teachers.
How pending FRQ grades appear in Reports
An FRQ appears in Reports only after you grade and release it. Until then, the response stays pending and behaves like this:
It shows as Grade pending in the answer breakdown.
It counts as an attempt.
It counts as 0 toward the grade.
Accuracy works differently. It excludes pending responses and measures only questions you have already graded. Because the grade counts a pending response as 0 but accuracy ignores it, a student's grade can rise once you release the score.
Note: An info icon on the accuracy badge means some grades haven't been released yet, so the numbers aren't final.