You seem to be extrapolating from a somewhat limited understanding of the potential form. There's nothing at all unnatural about using potential form to refer to a past event. The nuance is "I was able to get a good grade."
For complete accuracy, the textbook should have given the above as the corresponding English to make it a literal translation. However, it's probably just going for natural English here. We probably wouldn't go out of our way to say "I was able to..." in this case in English, but in Japanese I'd say it's very idiomatic to use the potential form here.