21-117 Integration and Differential Equations

Exams

Important: Do not make travel plans which require you to leave campus before noon on Thursday, March 7. This is the university-designated Mini3 Exam Day. Hence you should make your travel plans under the assumption that you will have to be here. If you have already made conflicting plans, you will need to change them (complain to the university, not your professor), and if your parents will be making reservations for you, please inform them right away of your inability to leave before noon on March 7. Retests (see below) will be given that day. No one will be permitted to take the exam(s) early.

The course will have two exams, given during the regular lecture hour on Friday, February 8 and Friday, March 1. Tests will be closed book, and no calculators will be permitted. No make-up exams will be given, but in case you must miss an exam due to documented illness, family emergency, or university sponsored trip, you may take the corresponding Retest as a make-up exam. Oversleeping is a terrifying phenomenon, to be sure, but is not a legitimate excuse for missing a regular exam or a Retest. Please make sure you have a high-quality (i.e., loud) alarm clock.

Retests

If you score below 75/100 on either or both of Exams 1 and 2, you may take the Retest for that exam on Thursday, March 7. A three-hour time slot will be available to us. During the first 90-minute period you may take the Retest for Exam 1; during the second you may take the Retest for Exam 2. The maximum score you may receive for a Retest is 75/100. Any raw score above 75 will be truncated to 75, and so, for example, if your raw score is 96/100, this score will not be part of the record; your score will be 75 (and you will curse yourself for not scoring so high on the original exam). If your score on a Retest is lower than your original score, then your original score will stand. Each Retest will be designed so as to be comparable in length and difficulty to the corresponding original exam (but keep in mind that when any two exams are compared, you will most likely reckon one to be "easier" than the other). The problems on the Retests will not necessarily lend themselves to one-to-one comparison to problems from the original exams. Retests are merely alternate exams for the same conceptual material for which you are originally responsible. Also, it is possible that some topic not tested on the original exam will show up on the corresponding Retest, if you were originally asked to study that topic. None of this is meant to confuse you or torture you; I only intend to caution you not to make unwarranted assumptions about the content or nature of a Retest.

If you miss either of Exam 1 or Exam 2 due to a legitimate excuse (see first section above), then the corresponding Retest serves as a make-up exam, and the score will not be truncated. Though it is true that you will not have the opportunity to improve your score on that exam, bear in mind that you will have the advantage of seeing the original exam and problem solutions. So it can be argued that you have a better sense of what to expect than those students who went into the original exam "cold". On the Retest, they will be subject to a cap of 75/100 and you will not. So who has the advantage is open to dispute. And aside from all that, you surely know by now that life isn't fair.

Homework

There will be six homework assignments. These will be handed in on recitation days. You must hand in your assignment during the first ten minutes of the recitation session; your TA will not be authorized to accept papers after this cut-off. Homework will be scored according to three criteria: (i) evidence of conscientious effort on your part to work all problems completely and correctly, (ii) the clarity of the work, and (iii) the correctness of the work. Regarding point (ii), you should resist the urge to simply write endless strings of computations with no explanation of the thought process behind your work. Include transitional phrases and explanations such as, "Now we set the height function equal to zero to determine when the ball hits the ground." The habit of sprinkling sentences through your write-up will carry over to exams, which is very important, because when we grade exams, the only way we can tell what was going on in your mind is by looking at what you've put on the paper. So use the homework as practice for writing up very clear work.

Collaborative effort on homework is strongly encouraged, because (i) the chance for you to articulate mathematical ideas to your peers (as you help them with problems) is effective in concretizing your understanding of the concepts, and (ii) you are likely to benefit from the insights of your peers, who may reveal connections that you had not made. However, each student should individually write up his or her own work, and you should never give your pals access to the final version of your homework write-up. In cases where two or more homework papers are, in the judgement of the professor or a TA, clearly the work of one mind, the score due will be split equally among those involved.

Officially, late homework is not accepted, but if you feel that your situation is exceptional, you must personally bring the matter to the professor. Your TA will not be given discretion to accept late homework.

If you hand in all homework assignments and score at least 60/100 on each one, you will earn the Homework Bonus (see below).

It is recommended that you save all returned homework and exam papers until you have actually seen your final grade for 21-117. Occasionally errors occur and a homework score does not get recorded. (Perhaps your paper gets "stuck" to the one above it as your TA is processing a stack of papers.) In case a discrepancy results, the matter is more easily rectified when you can produce the returned paper as evidence.

Grading Questions

Questions regarding the grading of exams or of homework must be brought personally to the professor, outside of class. No such issues will be addressed in the lecture room. No matter who actually did the grading, only the professor will be authorized to address grading concerns.

Grade Computation

The grade scale, regardless of method used for grade computation, is as follows: 
           ADJUSTED FINAL AVERAGE   LETTER GRADE
           ----------------------   ------------

             90.00000 - 100.00000       A
              80.00000 - 89.99999       B
              70.00000 - 79.99999       C
              60.00000 - 69.99999       D
               0.00000 - 59.99999       R

Whichever method below is more favorable to you will determine your Unadjusted Final Average (UFA). 


                METHOD A          METHOD B 
                --------          --------
   
              Exam 1   35%      Exam 1   45%
              Exam 2   35%      Exam 2   45%
              Homework 30%      Homework 10%

If you earn the Homework Bonus, then your Adjusted Final Average (AFA) is as follows: 


               AFA = UFA + 3.00000

If you do not earn the Homework Bonus, then AFA = UFA. So ... the Homework Bonus lowers the effective letter grade thresholds by 3 percentage points. As a result, you would be very wise to commit yourself to earning the Homework Bonus. Note that the letter grade thresholds are strict. So to avoid being a "borderline case" (i.e., you want an A but your UFA is 89.9%), you should decide that you will do all the homework. If your AFA is 89.99999, so that you are a borderline case after the Homework Bonus is applied, then please note that your "real" average is well inside the B range. So if that happens to you, have a good cry, but go on with life.