*cough*
Ok, in Italy marks and grades are a bit different from the ones you're mentioning here. They usually go from 1 to 10. Obviously 1 is the worst you can get and 10 is the maximum.
To pass final exams you have to get from 60 to 100, if it's less than 60 you fail the exams
This only goes for high school, because university is a different story...
When I was an high school student, during the first year it all went fine. Then, for the next two years it was a sort of disaster, because I didn't want to study and I had some troubles with some teachers that really hated me...and I also refused to go to school.
During the last years (in Italy high school is 5 years) it all came back to normality. I was among the three best students of the class. I got punished anyway, because I used to skip school too often, I didn't want to play any sport, and stuff like that... They changed some of my grades just before the final exams. So I couldn't get the maximum as I was hoping: I got 97/100 instead of 100/100.
But oh well, now I don't care anymore...