Grades are determined by the assessor by considering all criteria in full, determining the grade according to general criteria without calculations based on subgrades.
I guess the point there is that you don't just add up all these small pieces and then you're just reaching a passing grade. Because a student could do tiny things that are not really showing that they learned about he objectives of the assignment and then they can get a passing grade. [...] I think the phrase basically tries to avoid that.