How do Assessments Work in this Class?

Weekly Quizzes

We will have 10-minute quizzes at the beginning of class on Monday & Tuesday.

Quizzes are formative assessments. This means they are not designed to test whether you know everything, but to help you practice thinking and see where you might still have problems.

They will focus on important -- and sometimes subtle -- fundamental issues, often from the previous week's material, but sometimes on more general thinking issues. Treat them as a diagnostic, not as a score! A one-point deduction might show that you've deeply misunderstood something. And don't expect to get perfect scores!

Each quiz will be worth 10 points. If there will be 11 quizzes, the lowest grade will be dropped.

Exams

We will have two midterm exams and a final. Each exam will test how well you have learned to use and make sense of the material. As a result, you will be expected to think on exams.

Each exam will be structured something like this (points approximate):

• one set of short answer or multiple choice problems (25 pts),
• two multi-part problems (25 pts each),
• one estimation problem (15 pts), and
• an essay question (10 pts).

The final exam will be approximately double in length and will be cumulative (though it will emphasize the material covered after the second exam).

Although the final and two in-class exams are important, they only total 30% of your grade -- and there are ways to improve your exam result after the fact.

Exam problems will not be standard end-of-chapter problems.

You will be expected to think, not recall previously memorized information. Questions of the type found on our exams will be included in the homework problems and problems from previous exams will be available on ELMS. On the problems (not the multiple choice questions), you will be expected to show your work and explain your reasoning. If you only show the (correct) answers, you are likely to receive no more than 40% of the maximum credit!

Exams have a fixed standard

Exams are NOT graded on a curve. We have an nearly absolute expectation. On most exams, ~80% will be an A, ~70% a B, ~60% a C. This means that someone else's doing well on an exam will never negatively affect your grade. If you all do extremely well on an exam (however unlikely that may be) we will give you all A's for that exam. (If you are thinking "but isn't 90% an A?" get over it. All grading scales are arbitrary and we want one that doesn't penalize you severely for one bad score and gives more room for constructive feedback.)

You can improve an exam grade

1: Regrades

We'll go over each midterm in class on the day it's handed back. This will help you see what you did wrong and why.

If you think the grader misunderstood what you were saying, or failed to give you proper credit, you can apply to your lead instructor for a regrade. To do so, write a clear description of why you think you should have more points and turn it in with your exam. (Simply asking to "please take another look" will be returned without evaluation.) If you can make a case that you made an early error, but correctly carried out later parts that depended on that error, you can request consistency points. Again, you have to explain your argument carefully in writing.

When we are going over the exam, be sure not to write on your exam itself since this will mean we would have to look up the scanned exams to see what you originally wrote. If you alter a graded exam and request a regrade we will automatically report it to the honor committee. Don't do it!

2: Makeup exams

Each midterm exam will be followed by a makeup exam the week after the exam.

• If you miss a midterm, you must take the makeup.
• If you are unhappy with your grade on an exam, you may take the makeup. If you take both the original and makeup exams, your grade for that exam will be the average of the two grades (whether you do better or worse).

In our experience, students who carefully consider their errors and understand what they did wrong on the first exam almost always improve; students who don't do this and just "take another shot" and "study some more" are as likely to go down as to go up. (Note that you have to choose to take the makeup or not. You can't look at the makeup and decide not to take it. Receiving the makeup exam means that you have chosen to take it.)

Equation sheets on exams? No!

Equation sheets will not be permitted on exams. This is NOT because we want you to memorize all the equations, but because if you focus on lots of equations you will miss making sense of the physics. We expect you to know some equations -- but only a few; and they should make sense to you and be easy to remember. These equations summarize basic conceptual ideas and you should know them. If there are obscure equations needed on the exam they will be provided.