Evaluation
Weekly written examinations will be given on Monday mornings from 9:00-10:00, covering material from the first 4 weeks of the course. Each of these will only cover material from the previous week. There will be 5 questions / day of lecture for each weekly exam. The 4 weekly exams in aggregate will be worth 50% of the final grade. The final exam will be cumulative, but with an emphasis on the previous week’s material, and will be worth 50% of the final grade. As a result, each lecture is given equivalent weight in terms of computing the final grade.
Examinations will generally be multiple choice.
Policies
Exams will be administered in accordance with the uniform examination policy published in the student handbook. You may ask questions during the examination for the purpose of clarification of the question only, for example to clarify language. If the proctor believes your question cannot be answered without hinting at or giving away the correct answer to the question, the proctor will not answer.
Your corrected answer sheets will be returned to you in class. From the time they are given to you, you have one week to review the exam and notify the course director of any processing errors. You may do this by person, by e-mail, or by phone, because the course director keeps a copy of your answer sheet.
If you believe an error was made in a specific question, for example that more than one response should have been accepted, contact the course director. He will tell you which instructor wrote the question and the process for appealing. This appeal must take place in the one week review time unless an extension is given by the course director. An exam grade will not be changed after the one week period.
If acceptable answers to a question are revised based on the appeal of one student, then appropriate additional credit will be given automatically to any other students who selected the same answer. Since the department maintains copies of the answer sheet, it will not be necessary to resubmit this sheet.
Preparation
We prepare examinations primarily from lecture material. Lecture material includes the lecture itself, handouts, and other supplementary material. The handouts are either copied one-sided or the text is spaced to allow you to add your notes. The texts we recommend are meant to expand upon lecture material and to assist you with material you find difficult.
We will make practice exams available to you. Identifying the correct answers on the practice exams is only a starting point. We recommend that you take the time to understand why the correct answer is correct, and why the other answers are incorrect. Use the practice exams to identify your strengths and weaknesses, and do this early enough to allow time for additional review of areas you have problems with.
We urge you to plan your study to allow time for discussions with the instructors if you need them. Individual or small group sessions with instructors will be most useful if they occur after your initial studying has focused your questions.
Grades Distributions
Grades are assigned based on the weighted average of the examination scores, as follows:
A 93 to 100
A- 90 to 93
B+ 88 to 90
B 83 to 88
B- 80 to 83
C+ 78 to 80
C 73 to 78
C- 70 to 73
FAIL <70