Complete the Mandatory Orientation (& Remind.com sign-up) by Sept 22.
Important Note: If you take any tests on time you will receive extra credit points that will improve your grade. See "Extra Credit Points" under "Grading" for details.
FINAL EXAM is due by December 8 for extra credit points.
Plan to only take the Final Exam once. There is one re-test opportunity for the final exam, but only if you take the final exam on or before its due date. Then you may retake it one day later. There is also a Practice Final Exam available on Blackboard.
(Everything in the section below also applies to the Course Challenge Exam.)
The Final Exam must be taken using Respondus LockDown Browser and Respondus Monitor. More information about the Respondus software will be given on your BlackBoard course.
The final exam will be comprehensive. There will be 100 questions on it drawn from the 160 Learning Objective pools used in this course. So each question will be drawn from one or two pools. The questions will be arranged in the order the chapters were assigned. Questions over Chapter 1 will be the first ones encountered and questions over Chapter 17 (Chapter 9 is skipped) will be the last ones encountered.
You will be allowed to use two 8.5x11 inch pieces of paper with notes written on both sides. These crib sheets must be handwritten -- not typed, and it must not be a photocopy. This crib sheet must be shown on the Respondus Monitor camera before the start of the exam.
More information about the Final Exam will be posted on the Announcements page on this course's Blackboard site about two weeks before the end of the semester. (If you complete the course early, please email me, and I will supply you with that information.)
The Final Exam may be retaken once, if the first attempt is made by the due date, and there is a Practice Final available on Blackboard.
This Practice Final is a copy of the actual Final Exam you will be taking using the Respondus LockDown Browser, but the Practice Final Exam does not require the Respondus LockDown Browser. The Practice Final is the "same" as the Final Exam in the sense that it draws examination questions from the same test pools. It is not an exact copy because it will likely draw a different question from each pool. Nevertheless, it will give you an excellent sense of what the final exam will be like when you take it using the Respondus LockDown Browser. It should help you understand how much you will need to prepare for the actual final exam, especially if you practice with only the crib sheets you intend to use for the actual final. (TIP: review your crib sheet every time your go over your practice final results.) Again, Respondus is not needed to take the Practice Final Exam.
The final exam will be comprehensive. Two or three questions will be drawn from each chapter covered during the semester. The questions will be arranged in the order the chapters were assigned. Questions over Chapter 1 will be the first ones encountered and questions over Chapter 17 will be the last ones encountered.
You will be allowed to bring two 8.5x11 inch pieces of paper with notes written on both sides. The crib sheets must be handwritten -- not typed, and must not be a photocopy. The crib sheets (or a copy of them) must be turned in after the exam. You must use a crib sheet even if it has nothing on it except a note saying you didn't prepare a crib sheet with your signature.
Please make a photocopy of your crib sheet if you are testing at a testing center and want to save it. The original will be taken after you complete the final exam in the Testing Center and will not be returned to you.
More information about the final can be found on this course's Blackboard site.
Finally, there are several important pieces of information that you need to keep in mind when preparing for the final exam.
1) If you make an F on the final, (that is, makes less than 55% or 165 points out of 300 on the final exam), then you can make no higher than a C in the course.
In other words, you cannot make an A or a B in the course if he makes an F on the final.
2) If you make a D on the final, (that is, makes at least 55% (165) but less than 65% (195) on the final exam), then you can make no higher than a B in the course.
In other words, you cannot make an A in the course if you earn a D on the final.
3) If you make a 92% (276 points) or above on the final exam, you will earn an A in the course regardless of your total points.
The first two exceptions are why a Practice Final is being provided. It is hoped that the Practice Final will help you to better prepare for the final and take away some of the anxiety you might feel when approaching it. In my experience, if the practice exam is taken under the same condition as the final exam it is a very good indicator of your actual final exam grade.
Visit the ACC Testing Centers website for more information about the locations and hours if you prefer to test at a testing center if that is an option at that time.
A Course Challenge Exam is offered to all students who want to see if they can pass the course without working through all the Pearson MyEconLab assignments and taking all the UNIT Exams. If you make 80% or better on the Course Challenge Exam you will have passed the course and need to do nothing more in it. I will give a letter grade of A or B to anyone who can do this (A or B depends on the result of your Course Challenge Exam).
The prerequisite for taking the Course Challenge Exam is to have completed the Mandatory Orientation Quiz with a grade of 80% or better.
This Challenge Exam is exactly like the final exam described above. By "exactly like," I mean all its questions will be randomly drawn for 100 pools of questions just like the Final Exam.
To learn more about the nature of this exam, please read the information given above about the final exam.
Like the Final Exam, the Challenge Exam must be taken using Respondus LockDown Browser and Respondus Monitor.
You must show your student ID and a photo ID when using Respondus.
If you make over 80%, you are finished with the course. If you make less than 80%, you will need to proceed through the normal assignments and exams required of the course.
Good luck if you want to try taking it. If you don't succeed, it will not damage your grade for the rest of the course in the least.
If you don't want to attempt taking it, you can proceed to the UNIT I Challenge Exam, or you can start working on the UNIT I MyEconLab assignments.
Option: If you take the Challenge exam at the start of the semester (before the UNIT 1 exam due date), but only earn a B. You may continue in the regular course to earn an A. You may do so by going through the detailed UNIT assignments including MyEconLab or even taken one, several, or all Challenge UNIT exams instead. Regular deadlines still apply in this case. Your fall-back in this course will always be a grade of B, but you may work until the regular deadlines to earn an A.