Math 311

Here are solutions to today's quiz.

Office hours tomorrow (on Wednesday, October 21) are cancelled because I have a committee meeting at that time.

Just a reminder that there will be a quiz on Wednesday, covering Sections 2.4 and 2.5.

I've posted your midterm scores on Brightspace. You can interpret your score as follows:

• 42–54: A- to A
• 32–41: B- to B+
• 22–31: C to C+

Anything lower than that is a D or an F.

In the interest of transparency, and also because it's no fun answering questions about I assign grades, let me explain in as much detail as possible how I assign grades for the class. For each midterm and final, after I grade the test, I make a gradescale as above. I don't set the scale to make a certain number of A's, B's, and C's. Rather, I look at the tests and try to judge what scores match my expectations for what merits an A, B, or C. This means that if everyone in the class does well, I set the gradescale so that there are more A's.

When it comes time to assign final grades for the course, I use the gradescales to convert the midterm and final scores to a numerical scale of 0–100. In more detail, I convert the low end of the A range to 90, the low end of the B range to 80, etc. I set the high end of the A range to something above 100. For scores in the middle of a range, I interpolate linearly to convert them to the numerical scale. As a consequence, even though the gradescale for this exam says that 41 is a B+ and 42 is an A-, there is no big difference between the two. When converted to the numerical scale, you'd just be getting an 89 instead of a 90 or something like that.

For the homework and quiz part of the grade, I also convert your scores to the numerical grade, though I'm a bit more ad hoc about it. Finally, I take all your numerical grades and compute a weighted average according to the weights given in the syllabus and arrive at your final numerical grades. Then, I make the final letter grades based on these. Roughly speaking, I'd convert numerical grades of 90 and above to an A or A-, grades of 80 to 90 to a B+, B, or B-, etc., but I use my judgment when setting the cutoffs (it's not like I'm giving people who got a numerical grade of 89.9 a B+).

One very special grading policy that I have: If you ask me whether I grade on a curve, I will ask you questions about what you mean by grading on a curve, probably until you give up asking your question. (If you can explain to me what you mean by grading on a curve, I am happy to answer the question, but it is not very common that anyone has a clear sense of what it means to grade on a curve.) I do hope that my explanation here is enough that you'll understand how the grading works.

Here are the solutions to midterm #1, version A and version B. I'll finish grading tomorrow and will post your scores to Brightspace.

Here are solutions to today's quiz.

Our first exam is scheduled for Monday, October 5th.

• The midterm will cover all sections of the textbook up to and including 2.3 (sections 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3).
• No calculators, cell phones, or other electronic devices are allowed. But as usual you can leave your answers unsimplified.
• You may bring with you a two-sided, one-sheet set of notes (on normal-sized paper) in your own handwriting.

Here are some old exams that you can use to prepare. There are solutions posted as well. Note that there's some variation in exam timing, so some of the exams contain questions on topics we haven't reached yet.

The best way to study is to take practice exams under exam-like conditions. The solutions are useful to check your answer after you've solved it, but it won't help you much if you just study by reading the solutions. Even if you've completely stuck on a problem, you'll do better if you email me for a hint rather than look at the solution.

We'll have a quiz next week, on Wednesday, September 30th. There will be one problem from Section 1.4 and one from Section 2.1.