PHY 2140 Grading Information


Your course grade will be determined by your performance in three Hour Exams, Reading Quizzes, Quiz Section results, and a Final Exam. The Final will cover the material presented during the entire semester. The overall course grade will be determined on the basis of the following distribution:

Reading Quizzes (bonus) 5%
Quiz section performance/Homework 10%
Best Hour Exam 25%
Second Best Hour Exam 25%
Final 40%
Total 105%

Reading Quizzes (5%):

It is important for you to come to class prepared, i.e. be familiar with the material to be presented. To test your preparedness, a simple ten-minute quiz, testing your qualitative familiarity with the material to be discussed in class, will be given at the beginning of some of the classes. No make-up reading quizzes will be given.

BONUS POINTS: There are 13 chapters with reading after the first class. Turning in a one or two page summary of the reading will be worth 0.5 point, and a good one will be worth 1.5 points. Additionally, 0.5 points will be awarded for the consistency. Reading summaries are due at the start of each lecture. Late reading summaries will not be accepted. These points are not simply additions to the total, but reduce the weight of the other requirements. For example if 20 points were earned in Reading Summaries then the contributions would be Reading Summaries 20%, Quiz Section performance 8%, Best and Second Best Hour Exams 20% each, and Final 32%.

Homework and QUIZ Sessions (15%):

The quiz sessions meet once a week. They are an essential part of the course. They allow meeting together in small groups to ask questions, discuss lecture material, discuss assigned problems, etc. The assigned homework problems are intended to test your understanding of course material. It is very important that you work out the solutions to each problem, and understand clearly the correct method of solution. Homework problems will be similar to those you might expect during examinations. In order to assess your performance, five (5) quizzes will be given to you by your quiz instructor. In order to encourage you to do your homework, your quiz instructor will randomly determine if a quiz problem is to be assigned for an in-class test, or one of the homework problems, due on that date, is to be collected.  Make-up in-class quizzes can be given at the discretion of your quiz instructor.

BONUS POINTS:  will be additionally assigned by your quiz instructor.

Hour Exams (25% each) and Final Exam (40%):

There will be THREE (3) Hour Exams and one Final Exam. There is no penalty for missing just one of the three Hour Exams, as only scores form your best two exams will be used in determining your final score (25% each). If you miss an additional exam, a zero will be used for that missed second exam in determining your total score. For a true emergency, a student may be allowed to take a make-up Final Exam. However, you must obtain permission to do so from the lecturer prior to or (at the latest) on the day of the Final. The Final Exam is worth 40% of your final score.

Additional BONUS POINTS will be given out for class activity.

The overall course grade will be determined on the basis of the following grading curve:

Grade Cumulated Score Grade Cumulated Score
A 91-100 C 60-64
A- 85-90 C- 55-59
B+ 80-84 D+ 50-54
B 75-79 D 45-49
B- 70-74 D- 40-44
C+ 65-69 E 0-39