The cruise line was given a C grade, primarily because of low marks for failing to disclose to the group its environmental procedures and records.
The 63s tied the mark for low score in the 10 years that the tournament has been played at Tiburon Golf Club in Naples, Fla.
Grade promotion and graduation are often dependent on test scores; teachers and administrators receive financial bonuses for high scores but can be reassigned or even fired for reporting low marks; schools are either shamed or commended through public rating systems; and more and more, schools are being closed or converted to charter schools because of unsatisfactory test results.
While none of the models cited here will necessarily win any popularity contests – the Fiat 500L, for example, gets low marks for reliability and other issues from Consumer Reports – we'd consider most of them to be worthy and bargain-priced choices as late-model used cars, especially those coming off short-term leases.
At a large defense contractor, for instance, people got low marks for not delivering exactly what they had promised, even if they delivered something better which led people to underpromise, eventually reducing employees' aspirations and driving out innovation.
When New York City's public schools received their first report cards last fall, given a blunt A through F letter grade, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg warned of consequences for those with low marks, saying with a flourish: "Is this a wake-up call for the people who work there?
The problem was not with his dancing, but with the fact that many people dislike his outspoken personality, and his badmouthing judge Carrie Ann Inaba for giving him low marks showed him to be a disrespectful poor sport.
Feeling powerless, the other executives understandably give themselves low marks for performance and for their ownership of team outcomes.
While Faulkner, who opposed integration at the University of Mississippi in 1962, gets low marks for ignoring the dire need for civil rights, Caldwell wrote with great sensitivity about the horrors of Jim Crow.
Among the major carriers, Verizon scored high for staff knowledge and data speed quality, while AT&T received low marks for value, voice quality and over-the-phone customer support.
