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    How to Drop the Lowest Score in a Moodle Gradebook Category

    May 2nd, 2025

    Dropping the lowest score allows students to recover from a low score and provides a more accurate representation of their understanding of the course material.

    Moodle allows you to drop the lowest grade(s) from a category of activities/items in the gradebook.

    Requirements:

    • The activities/items MUST ALL BE OF EQUAL MAXIMUM VALUE.
    • The items must be contained in one category.
    Delete

    Warning

    • At the end of the semester, fill any empty cells with zeros; otherwise, those cells will not be counted as a score when used with the Exclude Empty Grades option.
    • Do not have activities with weights of Zero. While this is a common technique to not count an activity, it breaks the rule that all grade items must be of equal value for this option to be available.


    Open Gradebook Setup

    Step 1

    Go to the course homepage.

    Step 2

    Click on the Admin drawer.

    Step 3

    Click on Course administration > Gradebook setup.



    Add Categories

    Step 1

    Click on the Add drop-down menu at the top of the page and select Add category.


    Step 2

    Name your category (e.g. Discussions).

    Step 3

    Click on Save.

    Step 4

    Scroll to locate your newly created category and enter a Weight or Point Value.


    Step 5

    Press Enter after entering a value.

    Step 6

    Move activities into your category.

    1. Click the Move icon.
    2. Click the line under the category. 
    3. After moving all of your activities, set them to equal weights  (if they are all worth the same)
    4. Press Enter after setting the last value.

    Set the Category to Drop the Lowest Score

    Step 1

    Click the three dots drop-down next to the category.

    Step 2

    Click Edit category from the drop-down menu.

    Step 3

    Enter the number of lowest scores you wish to drop in the Drop the lowest textbox.


    Info

    If the Drop the lowest box is grayed out, it is because one or more grade items in the category are not of equal value. All grade items in the category must have the exact same score for this option to be available. You will need to change all grade items to be the same value before applying this setting.

    Step 5

    Click the Save button.


    Step 6

    In the category, under the Status column, you should see the applied formula.


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