each of the courses, which a student is taking in school, has to be passed by achieving a certain grade - and only then will the course credit count.
So when a student is taking a course, this would be "attempting"
and only when he passes the course with at least a D it will be counted as "passed"

e.g.

Math (grade B) attempted and passed
Spanish (grade D) ""
French (grade F) attempted but not passed