History Main / FMinusMinus

** Before 2017 (when the system was revamped to use numbers instead of letters), GSCE used letter grades from A* to A down to G or even H, meaning that F was indeed not the worst score possible -- even though the lowest passing grade was a C. It also had "N" for "Near Miss", "U" for "Ungraded" or "Unclassified" (so bad it can't even be graded, also exists at A-level), and "X" (basically zero). Paul Merton frequently references the U he received in GCSE metalwork in his comedy and TV appearances; in the audio commentary to ''The Very Best of Series/HaveIGotNewsForYou'' from 2002, he tells Ian Hislop that he'd have done better if he hadn't shown up for the exam at all.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Beetlejuice}}'': Beetlejuice gets a G, Q, and Z when he's forced to go back to school.

* In one episode of ''Series/SavedByTheBell'', Kelly gets an F from a teacher and asks him if she really deserved that. His response is "No, but they don't allow us to give you an N."

JustForFun/NotToBeConfusedWith the tell-tale sign of an incoming AtomicFBomb

** Zack Perlman, a rich slacker they're trying to recruit in [[Recap/CommunityS4E07EconomicsOfMarineBiology "Economics of Marine Biology"]], has an SAT score of 0. The lowest possible SAT score is 200 (for some reason), and even that is only possible by getting every single question wrong on a multiple choice test. While it's possible to get 200 points minimum, the first section of the SAT will deduct 200 points [[WhatAnIdiot if you get all 800 questions wrong]]. Alternatively, [[EpicFail he didn't even sign his name on the paper, let alone attempt it.]]

-> "[[TVTropesWillRuinYourLife You browsed TV Tropes all day every day instead of doing your assignment?]] Well, I give your assignment an F minus minus ''minus''!"

This trope is for negative grades that go off the scale, from a simple F- all the way down to Z-. Or if grades are percentage-based, the percentage will be negative, meaning that the character got more answers wrong than actually existed. A staple of school comedies that don't take themselves particularly seriously. An inversion of RankInflation. Contrast TheBGrade. When it's a reviewer doing this, it's BrokeTheRatingScale.

Not to be confused with the tell-tale sign of an incoming AtomicFBomb

* ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'': Timmy Turner has a history of getting these, while Crocker gives F as one of his catchphrases. In fact, Crocker is shown to have a super huge "F" stamp reserved especially for Timmy, which he has referred to as "[[{{Superhero}} Super]] F" more than once. However, it's unknown how much of it is actually Timmy's fault vs Crocker giving him bad grades because he hates him.

* Jeff and Pierce's [[Recap/CommunityS1E02Spanish101 acted-out Spanish presentation]] on ''Series/{{Community}}'' earns a grade of F (Pierce) and F- (Jeff).
** Zack Perlman, a rich slacker they're trying to recruit in [[Recap/CommunityS4E07EconomicsOfMarineBiology "Economics of Marine Biology"]], has an SAT score of 0. The lowest possible SAT score is 200 (for some reason), and even that is only possible by getting every single question wrong on a multiple choice test.
** While it's possible to get 200 points minimum, the first section of the SAT will deduct 200 points [[WhatAnIdiot if you get all 800 questions wrong]]. Alternatively, [[EpicFail he didn't even sign his name on the paper, let alone attempt it.]]

* On ''Series/SmartGuy'', TJ tutors a basketball player. After taking the test, the student claims he got a G, which he says is worse than an F, but it turns out it was actually a C-. The exact same thing happens on ''Series/SisterSister'', the series about TJ's actors' older twin sisters.
* In one episode of ''Series/ThatsSoRaven'', Eddie raps at a bully, "''Your grades are so low, you get straight Zs!''"

* In ''VideoGame/LuigisMansion'', the lowest grade is H (meaning the mansion is replaced with a little tent), although you have to try to do that badly. There are even a few Let's Plays of the game with the [[MinimalistRun goal of finishing with an H.]] The same is true of the first generation of 5-key ''VideoGame/{{Beatmania}}'' games.

** The TropeNamer is the WebAnimation/StrongBadEmail "for kids", in which Strong Bad assigns the children in his studio audience the eponymous grade. In the same email, Strong Bad somehow gets a score of -45/150 on ''VideoGame/PeasantsQuest'' before checking the email.

* Shown [[http://journal-of-murazrai.xanga.com/756337304/page-109-random-chaos-fighters-tidbit-4/ here]] as used in ''Literature/ChaosFighters'' with RankInflation.

* ''WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall'': In Linkara's review of ''Newmen'' #1, he references an F ''Triple'' Minus.

* There is a Website/{{Spacebattles}} thread called [[https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/force-chart-of-niceness-conquest.105383/ “Force Chart of Niceness Conquest”]] which ranks fictional and real societies in terms from least to most oppressive. However, it is on an extremely finely graded scale, so that an A represents nothing less than a theoretical, absolute {{Utopia}}, D is the ranking held by [[HumansAreFlawed the freest and most prosperous countries to have ever existed in real life]], and M represents the conditions of Auschwitz or the gulags. The scale goes all the way down to '''Z''', which is basically an eternal, inescapable {{Hell}}.[[note]]In fact, the TropeNamer for AndIMustScream is only ranked at Y.[[/note]]

* In the ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfJimmyNeutronBoyGenius'':

* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'': When Mojo Jojo starts teaching a linguistics class, he hears everyone and tells everyone that based on what he's already heard he would give them an F, then he goes on a rant where he says he would give them all a Z if the scale went down that low (he also asks why they skip E).

* England and Wales:

* In Ireland, you can be "awarded" an NG, which stands variously for "No Grade" or "Not Gradable" (with schoolyard parlance giving the meaning as "No Good"), meaning that you performed so badly that you don't even deserve an F.
* Most US universities (and many high schools as well) will have a set of grades beyond the usual A, B, C, D, and F:

** "W" is for "Withdrawal", meaning you [[ScrewThisImOutOfHere withdrew from the class]] before finishing -- but it often means that you were doing so poorly that the professor encouraged you to withdraw, so it ''seems'' like an F. The advantage of a W is that it usually doesn't have any effect on the GPA (so if you get one, you can try the class again).

* In Hong Kong, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_grading_in_Hong_Kong#Hong_Kong_Certificate_of_Education_Examination_and_Hong_Kong_Advanced_Level_Examination a "U" (or "UNCL", as known as Unclassified) grade]] is considered [[FateWorseThanDeath worse than an "F"]]. You'll get this grade if you write (or draw) anything irrelevant to the exam, or turning in a blank paper.
* Canada is mostly the same as the U.S., with the additional quirk of the University of Waterloo once using a literal "F-minus" for anything below 35%.
* In New Zealand, grades under the NCEA system at high school are N, A, M, and E (Not Achieved, Achieved, Merit, Excellence), with N being the fail grade and the rest being passing grades. There are also two different "F-minus" grades for failing to do anything: SNA ("Standard Not Attempted") if you show up but don't try to answer the questions, and DNS ("Did Not Sit") if you ''don't'' show up (and don't have a good excuse). Both are worse than an N, but SNA at least doesn't appear on your academic record.

** In post-USSR Russia, 5 is the highest and ''2'' is the lowest while still being a failing grade. You can unofficially get a 1, but that requires something ''beyond'' just not even trying. There's also "Not Graded", commonly used to give the students a LastSecondChance. It's a relic of the system from UsefulNotes/TsaristRussia, when that was basically what teachers officially used "1" for -- but they were also known to give a 0 if you ''really'' pissed them off.
** Poland goes from 1 to 6, with some institutions using 0 for "ungraded", but there's the option to use it for "ungradeable". In college, it goes from 2 to 5 like the Russian system (but since you can use halves, it amounts to six possible grades anyway).
** Latin America typically goes from 1 to 5 or from 1 to 10, but teachers have been known not only to give 0 for really bad students, but also to subtract from the grade as extra punishment for cheating or misbehaviour. That means you can indeed end up with a ''negative'' grade. There's one legend in Venezuela of a notoriously tough professor who "graded" an exam with weird curves on the corners of the page -- because the page wasn't big enough to fit the zero the exam deserved.
** France usually goes from 1 to 20 (although in practice it's 1 to 19, because [[DoWellButNotPerfect they think it's impossible to get a perfect score]]), with 0 being used basically if you wrote something completely irrelevant, didn't bother to show up, cheated, or otherwise misbehaved (including bothering other students during the exam). Each subject has three or four exams per school term, meaning if you get a 0 in a whole subject, you're either exceptionally dumb, have exceptional problems, or are trying to fail. There's also a special "absent" designation (varies from place to place) where you don't show up but your absence can be excused for a damn good reason.
** Denmark's lowest score is by default a -3.
** Hungary goes from 1 to 5, and while teachers can award zero for an absolute null effort, a 0 will "officially" be entered into the register as a 1. However, teachers also have considerable freedom in determining end-of-semester and end-of-year grades, so some of those zeroes will indeed be counted as zeroes when those teachers calculate the weighted average.
** Germany goes the opposite way: 1 is the best, and 6 is the worst. Some places add a plus or minus; 6-minus doesn't exist, except in the sense of this trope. The "backwards" way of doing it in Germany is thought to be behind the UrbanLegend of UsefulNotes/AlbertEinstein failing math in high school; Einstein did his exams in Switzerland (where higher is better) and [[TeenGenius got a 6 across the board]], which led confused Germans to think he was remarkably BookDumb.
* Israeli comedian Shalom Asayag once joked that he broke a world record in lowest grade possible, "earning" a -10 on a test. He got a zero for showing up but deciding not to take it, then lost an extra 10 points because his school required that students bring a notebook documenting every test they take, and he forgot to bring it.
* In the Netherlands, once there's nothing more to learn of Dutch spelling and grammar, teachers will start docking points for [[RougeAnglesOfSatin spelling and grammar errors]]. The more often you do it, the more points get docked, leading to theoretical possibilities of -16/10 on an exam, which is considered the absolute limit of what is achievable without just failing out of school for being so bad at Dutch.

* In Hong Kong, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_grading_in_Hong_Kong#Hong_Kong_Certificate_of_Education_Examination_and_Hong_Kong_Advanced_Level_Examination a "U" (or "UNCL", as known as Unclassified) grade]] is considered [[FateWorseThanDeath worse than an "F"]]. You'll get this grade if you write/draw anything irrelevant to the exam, or turning in a blank paper.
* At the [[http://ugradcalendar.uwaterloo.ca/page/uWaterloo-Grading-System University of Waterloo]], it was once possible (before 2001) to get a literal "F-minus" grade for anything 34% and below. Now they just use percentage grades for everything.
* In post-USSR Russia, grades are in numbers, with 5 being the highest, and 2 being the lowest. Getting a 1 requires something beyond just not attempting to read whatever is being tested. In UsefulNotes/TsaristRussia, however, it was officially used, and some ''very'' miffed teachers even used 0, but that required something above and beyond the call of stupidity. There's also "Not Graded", which is commonly used to give the students a LastSecondChance.
* While "F" is often the lowest ''final'' grade an individual can receive for a course, for individual assignments where letter grades are equivalent to points that ultimately lead to the final grades many teachers are known for going below the standard "F" which usually is around 60 or 65 points out of 100. On something like a multiple choice test, going by the proportion correct makes sense, but on (for example) papers, there may be a conversion table for non-F letter grades, while F covers a broad range from "bad paper" to "turned in a blank paper, or obscene drawings, or..."
* In the Caribbean countries that are under the CARICOM (Caribbean Community), there are two major final exams for differing grade levels in secondary schools, namely the 11th grade and the 12th (or 13th) grade (known as sixth form). The examinations are officially named as the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) respectively. While the grade levels range from I-V, with I being the highest and V being the lowest, there is a U grade which stands for "ungraded", meaning that the examination was ungraded for a particular reason, usually due to the non-completion of the internal school-based assessment done within the final year, which is always a slight percentage of the final grade, ranging from 20% to 60%.
* In Poland school grades range from 1 (the worst) to 6 (the best), but at least some institutions use 0 for "ungraded". In college it's from 2 to 5 (oddly, 1 is not an option) and while halves are allowed, you can't get a 2.5 (no pluses or minuses involved), so basically there are 6 possible grades anyway.
* Some elementary schools use(d) this scale: E, S+, S, S- and N (Excellent, Satisfactory +, Satisfactory, Satisfactory -, Needs Improvement).
** In Ontario, elementary schools (and recently even high schools) use E, G, S, N (Excellent, Good, Satisfactory, Needs Improvement) not for grades, but for a section called "Learning Skills".
** In New Jersey, for elementary schools only, the scale went VG, G, S, M, U (for Very Good, Good, Satisfactory, Minimal, Unsatisfactory) at least during TheNineties. Middle school and higher uses the standard system, however.
** There are other elementary school systems that don't use letter grades at all. A check mark indicates satisfactory performance, with a check-plus for excellent work, and a check-minus for not so hot.
* In Mexico, the highest grade you can legally get is 10 (or 100% using percentiles instead) while a 5 (50%) is considered a reprobatory grade, but some schools can grade a student below five to one, and sometimes '''negative grades.'''
** In Colombia the scale is from 1 to 5, the first one being the lowest possible; however (and this is depending on the teacher more than the system), a teacher can put a 0 if a student, let's say, cheat or threaten to lower decimal points of the grade; combine the two and you get a negative grade.
* In France, the grades usually go from 1 to something (usually 10, 20 or 40), 1 being the lowest (or 0.5/0.25 if the teacher uses decimals), with special notes such as "ABS" or blank for absent (which means you can maybe try again if you have a solid motive and a proof, such as hospitalization or the death/funeral of a relative). You get 0 by either [[EpicFail writing a truckload of nonsense/something utterly irrelevant]], cheating, bothering other students/children during the exam or not respecting the conditions of the exam or the school rules. With 3 or 4 exams per subject per trimester, getting a 0 in a whole subject during a year means either you're [[TheDitz Ralph Wiggum]], trying to sabotage your year or need help (a pupil or student with suddenly dropping grades is an excellent sign that [[{{Pun}} something doesn't add up]]...).
** Usually French schools score students out of a max of 20 but ''never'' award anyone better than a 19 out of 20, because perfection is impossible, and so the highest score one can get is 19/20
* In France, some teachers, especially in primary school, can remove one grade for talin (because the pupil can whispered the right answer , but the teacher can't prove that pupil is whispered the right answer ). IF your grade is zero originally, you can grade -1/10 or -1/20
* The lowest grade in the Danish grading system is -3.
* In New Zealand, grades under the NCEA system at high school are N, A, M, and E (Not Achieved, Achieved, Merit, Excellence), with N being the fail grade and the rest being passing grades. There is also an SNA grade (standard not attempted) if you leave your exam paper blank; this is worse than an N, but better in that it doesn't appear on your academic record. A DNS grade (did not sit) meanwhile is even worse; it means you didn't even turn up to the exam (and you didn't have a good enough excuse to get compassionate consideration).
* In Germany, grades go from 1 to 6, optionally with + or - added. 6 is the worst, 6- doesn't exist but is sometimes mentioned in the sense of this trope.
* Venezuelan grading on High School and most superior education institutions goes from 01 to 20 points, with "10" (or, technically, 9,5, since the grades round up) as the passing grade. Some teachers are not afraid to give full zeroes for the most spectacular failures. On one famous university, it was well known the anecdote of a Logic teacher infamous for his harsh grading who once handed a corrected exam without a grade, only some curve marks in the corners of the paper. When the student complained about his lack of grades and the strange marks, the teacher answered "oh, is that the zero you earned was so big it didn't fit on the paper."
* The inverse of this trope is slightly easier. It is possible to get more than 100% on a paper if you do extra credit or something worthy of being considered extra credit. This won't result in getting an A plus plus per se, though.
* Israeli comedian Shalom Asayag once said he broke a world record in lowest grade possible, ‘earning’ a -10 on a test he decided not to do after showing up, losing the extra 10 points because his school required that students bring a notebook documenting the tests they took, and he forgot to bring it.
* At Lancaster University, the grading system is based on that of the US (with grades A-D, with pluses and minuses, and then an F failing grade). However, the F grade here is subdivided into F1, F2, F3, and F4. An F1 indicates a poor grasp of the subject. An F3 is about the worst you can do while still submitting actual work. An F4 indicates that you either a) talked about a completely different subject on the exam, b) submitted no actual work, or c) submitted the work more than three days late without an extension.
* At some point in Dutch high school, there will be no more grammar and spelling rules to teach. At that moment some teachers might resort to harsher and harsher grading,for example test of 50+ questions with a 0.5/10 taken from your score with every mistake. This results in theoretical possibilities of getting scores like -16/10, but you wouldn't actually gave gotten so far if you're so bad at Dutch.
* Hungary has grades from 1 (worst) to 5 (best). But to reward an absolute null-effort, some teachers tend to award 0s. Even though it will officially be entered into the register as a 1, teachers have considerable freedom in determining the end-of-semester and end-of-year grades, so some of these zeroes will indeed be counted as zeroes when those teachers calculate the weighted average. (Similarly, 5* grades given for perfect tests might be counted as 5.5 or 6.)

* In England and Wales, in addition to the normal set of grades, 'U' (unclassified) at both [=GCSE=] and A-level. This can mean you didn't score highly enough to be offered a certificate. Paul Merton frequently references the U he received in GCSE metalwork in his comedy and TV appearances; in the audio commentary to ''The Very Best of Series/HaveIGotNewsForYou'' from 2002, he tells Ian Hislop that he'd have done better if he hadn't shown up for the exam at all.
** In the old days, the A-level system also awarded the 'O' grade, meaning that while you had not scored highly enough to get even an 'E' grade in the A-level, your work could officially be counted as the equivalent of an 'O'-level pass. It was pointed out that anyone getting a 'F' or a 'U' grade had scored so badly, then even if they'd previously passed the subject at O'level this result hinted that they'd spent two years of study time going backwards.
** The full system of GCSE grades (before the 2017 revamp using numbered "grades" instead) started with A* at the top, then going from A down to G (or in some cases even H - meaning F was not the worst score possible), which meant scoring at least 20%. Slightly under this was grade N (for Near Miss), followed by U (ungraded - so bad it doesn't even count - and then finally X (for scoring zero). "Passing" was generally defined as scoring at least a grade C. Grades D and below were considered failing grades, while an N, U, or X were just considered epic failure.
** Depending on the subject taken at university, some exams can be multiple choice. In these cases, given the difficulty of university and to discourage students simply attempting to guess the answers, the scoring system awards 1 mark for a correct answer or -1 mark for choosing a '''wrong''' answer (as opposed to simply given 0 marks); thus, if you are unsure about the answer, it is better to pass over the question than to take a wild guess. Following from this, it becomes obvious that if you get more questions wrong than you got right, you will receive a '''negative''' score (in fact the score can range from 100% to -100%)!
* In Ireland, you can also be "awarded" an NG, which stands variously for No Grade or Not Gradable (with schoolyard parlance giving the meaning as No Good), meaning that you performed so badly that you don't even deserve an F.
* Most US universities allow a grade of "I", meaning "incomplete." However, this is usually just a temporary placeholder, indicating the student has a certain amount of time to make up for missed work. If that is not done then the grade converts to an F.
** If you really screw up badly before or after midterms, some professors will encourage you to withdraw from the class since you stand no chance of getting enough high grades to make the final grade of the class a passing grade. A W is always better than having an F, since a W usually has no effect on the GPA.
** "X" means "No Basis for Grade". Awarding this grade requires intervention from the campus ombudspeople.
** Most standardized tests with a grading system will have some kind of "ungraded" designation, like the "hyphen" on the AP exams, which is what you get if, for instance, you leave the multiple-choice section blank and draw a rocket ship on the essay paper.
** If a professor's rubric includes docking the final grade a few percentage points for missed classes, and if you do sufficiently poorly on your class work as well, it's quite possible to wind up with a final percentage that's less than zero. The final ''grade'' will still probably be counted as an F, but your score is a negative number.
** In some universities, if you receive a failing grade as a punishment for cheating or plagiarism, the grade may show up on your transcript as an "XF" or "FF" to indicate that you were flunked for violating academic integrity. This is generally considered even worse than failing just for not knowing the material. Ironically, some students have actually requested their schools adopt this grade so that the regular Fs on their transcripts wouldn't be mistaken for dishonesty.
** In some cases in college, you can be given a "WI" or "Withdraw--Instructor." This is for cases where it's past the deadline to drop or withdraw from the class normally (which wouldn't even appear on a transcript on the former case or as just "W" on the latter, neither of which affect GPA), but something else happens that would prevent you from finishing the course as normal(such as a medical emergency). By granting this, the teacher is basically saying "I won't pass or fail the student because I know this isn't their fault." Unlike a drop or normal withdrawal, this carries a much lower chance of harming your financial aid eligibility. Some more benevolent teachers will offer these to students that are really struggling near the end of the course, so they can try again without any harm to their GPA.
* In Hong Kong, there is also [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_grading_in_Hong_Kong#Hong_Kong_Certificate_of_Education_Examination_and_Hong_Kong_Advanced_Level_Examination a "U" (or "UNCL", as known as Unclassified) grade]] which is considered [[FateWorseThanDeath worse than an "F"]]. You'll get this grade if you write/draw anything irrelevant to the exam, or turning in a blank paper.
* There is, in some Canadian Universities, the FD. Fail with Dishonesty. You plagiarized or cheated in one way or another, [[NoFairCheating and you get this S.O.B on your record]].
** At the [[http://ugradcalendar.uwaterloo.ca/page/uWaterloo-Grading-System University of Waterloo]], it was once possible (before 2001) to get a literal "F-minus" grade for anything 34% and below. Now they just use percentage grades for everything.
* In post-USSR Russia, grades are in numbers, with 5 being the highest, and 2 being the lowest. Getting a 1 requires something beyond just not attempting to read whatever is being tested. In UsefulNotes/TsaristRussia, however, it was officially used, and some ''very'' miffed teachers even used 0, but that required something above and beyond the call of stupidity.
** There's also Not Graded grade, which is commonly used to give the students a LastSecondChance.
* In some NYC colleges, students can get a WU. Unofficial Withdrawal. This only happens if you get excessive amounts of absent marks in a class without any excuse. This is worse than an F since an F shows you at least attended your classes somewhat while a WU can screw you over in registration for classes and is a pain in the ass to take care of.

* Academic dishonesty nets you two F's and an expulsion in most American colleges.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'': Timmy Turner has a history of getting these, while Crocker gives F as one of his catchphrases. In fact, Crocker is shown to have a super huge "F" stamp reserved especially for Timmy, which he has referred to as "[[{{Superhero}} Super]] F" more than once.

%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1395191399065189800
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* In the Flash animation ''Final Fantasy A+'', adventuring students fight a boss of some sort for their final exams, with grades awarded by how many {{Hitpoints}} they had left at the end (all students have a maximum of 100). By the final boss fight, the hero is down to zero hitpoints, but [[{{Determinator}} keeps going]]. As he continues to take damage his grade drops from "F" to "FF". [[spoiler:Though by the time he finally wins it's revealed that it actually stands for "Final Fighter A+".]]

* Website/SomethingAwful used to review really bad movies and computer games, giving them ''negative'' 1-10 points in categories like graphics, plot, gameplay, and so forth.
* Shown [[http://journal-of-murazrai.xanga.com/756337304/page-109-random-chaos-fighters-tidbit-4/ here]] as used in ''Literature/ChaosFighters'' with RankInflation.
* There's a T-shirt that reads "F+ student". You can see it [[http://www.zazzle.com/f_student_t_shirt-235350529424621463 here]].
* There is a Website/{{Spacebattles}} thread called [[https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/force-chart-of-niceness-conquest.105383/ “Force Chart of Niceness Conquest”]] which ranks fictional and real societies in terms from least to most oppressive. However, it is on an extremely finely graded scale, so that an A represents nothing less than a theoretical, absolute {{Utopia}}, D is the ranking held by [[HumansAreFlawed the freest and most prosperous countries to have ever existed in real life]], and M represents the conditions of Auschwitz or the gulags. The scale goes all the way down to '''Z''', which is basically an eternal, inescapable {{Hell}}.[[note]]In fact, the TropeNamer for AndIMustScream is only ranked at Y.[[/note]]

* Inverted and exaggerated in one episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy'', where Mandy gets an A and several plusses that ''cover the entire page of her math test''.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/DaveTheBarbarian'' episode "Rite of Pillage", Dave receives grades of F and F- on first two tests, Battle Cry and [[HehHehYouSaidX Laying]] [[ToiletHumour Waste]] respectively. After failing his third test, Plundering, his examiner becomes furious at his performance.
-->'''Pillage Master:''' Oh there must be something lower than F-. ''(furiously scribbles "Z" over and over again on Dave's report card)'' Z!!! ''Z!!!'' Z! Z! Z! Z! Z!...
* Parodied as well as TheBGrade in ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'':
-->'''Wernstrom:''' I give your invention the worst grade imaginable: an A-minus-''minus''!
* ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'': Timmy Turner has a history of getting these, while Crocker gives F as one of his catchphrases. In fact, Crocker is shown to have a super huge "F" stamp reserved especially for Timmy, which he has referred to as "[[{{Superhero}} Super]] F" more than once.
-->'''Timmy:''' ''[[[ItMakesSenseInContext sinking into his pile of failing grades]]]'' [[BigNo Nooooooooooo!]] [[MoodWhiplash Cool, there's a D in here!]]
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Doug}}'': In the episode "Doug's Bum Rap", Doug imagines himself getting the lowest score of -60 on his English test, earning him a spot on the infamous Hall of Losers as the "Stupidest Boy in the World".
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}'':
** In one episode, Buster worried about getting an "F" on an assignment he did wrong and Arthur quipped that he could even get a "G" or an "H."
** The episode "Team Trouble" inverts this a bit. Arthur, Buster, and Francine, upon realizing their group assignment on Ancient Rome has several kinks to work out, all have an ImagineSpot: Arthur imagines an F, Buster imagines multiple Fs, and Francine imagines an F+. Which is a BrickJoke from earlier in the episode, when Arthur and Buster imagined getting A's, and Francine an A+.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheEmperorsNewSchool'' episode "Kuzclone" has the eponymous clone flunk Kuzco's tests so badly he gets a G-.
* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'': When Mojo Jojo starts teaching a linguistics class, he hears everyone and tells everyone that based on what he's already heard he would give them an F, then he goes on a rant where he says he would give them all a Z if the scale went down that low (he also asks why they skip E).
%%* Discussed in ''WesternAnimation/TheWeekenders''.

* Otto of ''WesternAnimation/RocketPower'' gets in trouble with his dad for earning a "check minus minus" in Classroom Citizenship.
* On ''WesternAnimation/TheJetsons'', Elroy gets his report card switched with a student who gets an H.
* In ''WesternAnimation/MovilleMysteries'', the school jock always gets the same grade: X, so awful it can't be graduated. His parents always praise the grade as it was an A because he's such a good athlete that talent hunters always are chasing after him with million-dollar contracts.
* On an episode of ''WesternAnimation/MuppetBabies1984'' where the characters were pretending to go to school, Piggy ends up giving Gonzo a "W" on his report card. Although it more than likely stood for "weird" and Gonzo was very pleased with his marks.

* In ''WesternAnimation/WhateverHappenedToRobotJones'', most people in the class got an F, some getting an F-, one getting an F'''[[DownplayedTrope +]]''', and the title character--the only passing person in the class--getting a [[TheBGrade C-]], and proceeding to go out of his way to negotiate with the scantron to get a better grade because it was "below average".
* ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'' has a SeinfeldianConversation about Ron getting an F- and claiming it's a bit extreme.
* ''WesternAnimation/JohnnyTest'' has the episode "Extra Credit Johnny" where Johnny fails so much that he gets a Z-, and then goes further, getting a ZZ-.
* A very early episode of ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' has the boys turning in a report on the Vietnam War based on an incredibly inaccurate depiction given to them by Stan's Uncle Jimbo. Mr. Garrison gives them an F-, and Stan openly wonders if he can do that.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Gawayn}}'': When Elspeth has to go to magic school to get her diploma, the Duke sabotages her exams; causing her to get an F, then an F minus, then an F minus minus.
* In the Canadian animated series ''WesternAnimation/YvonOfTheYukon'', one episode saw the titular character do so badly in an exam that he gets a G. He's so haunted by it that he becomes determined to get an F...except he starts doing so well in everything that he only gets A grades.
* ''WesternAnimation/UncleGrandpa'' {{invert|edTrope}}s this trope by helping one student actually eat his own homework, giving him an A+++++-+ for also saving his students.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Fangbone}}'': In "The Duck of Always", Bill has a nightmare where he gets an F minus in 'World Saving'.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS11E3GuessWhosComingToCriticizeDinner Guess Who's Coming to Criticize Dinner]]", Homer becomes a food critic and invokes the trope by giving Marge's pork chops his lowest rating ever, "seven thumbs up!"

* From German comic ''Haiopeis'':
-->'''Fish university clerk:''' You got 2 of 2158 points in your last entry test.\\
'''[[TheDitz Shark]]:''' Great, that's the highest I've ever gotten! When can I start to [[MalaProper stupidy]]?\\
'''Fish clerk:''' Why study? That was our entry test for the cleaning staff.
* ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'':
** In one comic, Susie is happy with the smiley face sticker she got on her test. Calvin, however, is less than thrilled. When she asks what he got, he refuses to tell her, leading her to accuse him of getting a frowny face sticker. Calvin denies it, then comments to himself that he never knew they even ''made'' barfing face stickers.
** In the bug collection assignment arc, Calvin is trying to do the aforementioned project on the day it's due. He gets 4 bugs (out of the 50 he needs; also, one of them is actually a ball of lint) before he has to go to class. Susie snarks that if he labels them scientifically in the next 30 seconds, he might get an F-Plus. At the end of the arc, Calvin tells Hobbes that he got an D-Minus-Minus on the assignment.
* There's a [[http://www.gocomics.com/fminus?ref=comics comic strip]] by Tony Carillo named ''F Minus''. Carillo has said that he sometimes wishes he'd picked a different title, since it means that people who send him [[{{Hatedom}} hate mail]] all tend to make [[NeverHeardThatOneBefore a predictable comment]]...

* At the end of the picture book ''Bronto Eats Meat'', by Peter Maloney and Felicia Zekauskas, the protagonist of the story writes a school report about Bronto and is given an F- because his report is said to be unrealistic.
* In ''Literature/InterestingTimes'', one of the faculty members mentions that Rincewind is so inept at magic he once achieved ''negative marks'' in Basic Firestarting. When Rincewind dies, the average spellcasting ability of the entire human race will increase.

* In ''The Black Book and Schwambrania'' by Lev Kassil, words at one point replace numbers in the school's five-grade system ("bad", "unsatisfactory", "satisfactory", "good", "excellent" instead of a scale from 1 to 5), but there is nothing official on how to deal with minuses and pluses this way. Eventually one of the characters gets "completely bad with two minuses" as his term grade and lampshades that it's something one can't even spot with a naked eye.

* On ''Series/SmartGuy'', TJ tutors a basketball player. After taking the test, the student claims he got a G, which he says is worse than an F, but it turns out it was actually a C-. The exact same thing happens on ''Series/SisterSister'', the series about TJ's actors' older twin sisters.
* In one episode of ''Series/ThatsSoRaven'', Eddie raps at a bully, "''Your grades are so low, you get straight Zs!''"

* ''Series/BoyMeetsWorld'''s Mr. Feeny once threatened to give a student a G for turning in a paper late.
* In one episode of ''Series/SavedByTheBell'', Kelly gets an F from a teacher and asks him if she really deserved that. His response is "No, but they don't allow us to give you an N."

* ''Series/ADifferentWorld'': When Dwayne and Whitley begin dating, Dwayne's grades slip and he gets a C on an assignment. When he complains about this to Ron, his response is, "If you're making C's, Whitley has got to be making Q's!"
* Subverted in an episode of ''Series/GrowingPains'' when Mike is telling his parents what grade he got on a test. He begins with "I..." and Ben blurts out, "An 'I'?! That's worse than an F!" (it turns out it was a more typical grade (a C or a D).)
* In ''Series/GoodTimes'', J.J. is telling a friend that his late father once offered him a reward if he could bring his grade average UP to an F. He then quipped that his report card had contained two M's and a K minus.
* ''Series/BrooklynNineNine'' features a variation, in which it's not so much the grade that's unusual but the 'subject' being failed; Detective Amy Santiago once bitterly notes that the only F grade she ever received was because she somehow managed to fail ''recess''. This also overlaps with TheBGrade, in that Amy was normally an over-achieving TeachersPet, which may go some way towards explaining the F grade:
-->'''Amy:''' ''[bitter mimickry]'' Teachers need a break ''too'', Amy!

* In the flash game ''[[http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/229014 Stick Avalanche 2]]'', you can get grades of F-, F[=--=] and F[=---=].
* In ''VideoGame/LuigisMansion'', the lowest grade is H (meaning the mansion is replaced with a little tent), although you have to try to do that badly. There are even a few Let's Plays of the game with the [[MinimalistRun goal of finishing with an H.]] The same is true of the first generation of 5-key ''VideoGame/{{Beatmania}}'' games.
* ''VideoGame/CrossEdge'' has [[GameplayGrading battle rank evaluations]] that go in descending order from S, to A, B, C, D, E and F, and [[RankInflation keep going]] to G, H, ''I''...
* In ''VideoGame/ZorkGrandInquisitor'', if you read the grade report on the bulletin board in G.U.E. Tech, you'll see that the titular Grand Inquisitor got a Z- in magic due to his Magic Deficit Disorder.

* Most 3D ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'' games have the "E" rank which is basically saying [[EpicFail you did really horribly]]. It's most evident in ''VideoGame/SonicUnleashed'' where getting an E-rank causes the grade to ''go tumbling off'' and has Sonic falling down and asking to try again. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yODLkaF8F-Y Even the music knows how epically you failed!]]

* In the ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' DLC pack ''Old World Blues'', this is what Richie Marcus's (Dr. Borous' High School bully) grades are listed as in the replica high school.
* ''VideoGame/KillingFloor'': Female characters can taunt the zeds with an "F-".
* In ''VideoGame/CrazyTaxi'', finishing with no money gets a "grade" of No License. The next lowest grade is "E".

* [[AIIsACrapshoot ISIC]] from ''VideoGame/BattleBorn'' will sometimes give his opponent a "combat grade" of "F minus minus minus minus minus minus minus minus minus [[OverlyLongGag minus minus]]" upon scoring a kill.

* In ''Discworld/InterestingTimes'', one of the faculty members mentions that Rincewind is so inept at magic he once achieved ''negative marks'' in Basic Firestarting. When Rincewind dies, the average spellcasting ability of the entire human race will increase.

* Happens to the title character in ''Film/BillyMadison'' when he answers a question about the Industrial Revolution as represented in literature with a rambling, incoherent {{Metaphorgotten}} about the title character in ''The Puppy Who Lost His Way'', a book his first grade teacher read to the class. Although the audience cheers and applauds, the principal grades him thusly:

[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/super_f_6926.png]]]]

[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/super_f_6926.png]]]]

-->'''Principal:''' {{TheReasonYouSuckSpeech Mr. Madison, what you have just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.}}

-->'''Principal:''' Mr. Madison, what you have just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

** In one comic, Susie is happy with the smiley face sticker she got on her test. Calvin, however, is less than thrilled. When she asks what he got, he refused to tell her, leading her to accuse him of getting a frowny face sticker. Calvin promptly denies it, then comments to himself that he never knew they even ''made'' barfing face stickers.