Points out of a maximum. The teacher is supposed to decide in advance how much points a test will be worth (5, 10, 20 and 25 being common options, but I've also had tests where I scored 17,26/27) and then decides how much points a question will be worth. You need to get half of the maximum or more for a passing grade.
That's in high school. In university everything is scored out of a maximum of 20 points.
This thread is for asking any questions that might seem obvious, tangential, silly or what-have-you. Don't be shy, everyone has holes in their knowledge, though the fewer and the smaller we can make them, the better.
Please be respectful of other people's admitting ignorance and don't mock them for it, as they're doing a noble thing.
To any future monthly posters of SQ threads, please remember to add the "stupid_questions" tag.