Majority of subjects are graded on ‘Pass/Not pass’ (Credit/No Credit) basis (зачёт/незачёт, pronounced as "zach`ot/nezach`ot"), and the rest is graded in terms of numbers. The 'Pass/Not Pass" grades do not have any official numeric representation. When "zachot" (credit or pass) type of subjects are graded as ‘Pass/Not pass’ (sometimes translated as ‘Credit/No credit’) this simply represents student's good/bad knowledge of a subject, and in numeric terms could be interpreted as "more than or equal to "3"/less than "3". Each University implements its own understanding of the appropriate level of knowledge a student should have in order to pass studied subjects. Students in Russia must pass all the offered subjects in order to graduate.

Due to several ways to translate the word "zachet" from Russian into English (could be translated as "credit" or "pass"), this type of grades are the source of problems for Russian students applying to Western Universities. Such grades may confuse Western Universities and make it hard to correctly calculate students` GPA in terms of Western systems.