Main
Handout: Exams
Physics 122, Spring
2011
Prof. E. F. Redish
Although exams are important, they total only ~40% of your grade -- and there are ways to improve your result after the fact.
Exams:
- There are 3 exams. --
There will be two midterm exams and a final. All exams will be counted.
Each midsemester exam will be given on a Friday (tentatively, on 3/4
and 4/15), and will be returned and gone over on the following Monday.
- Missing an exam --
If you miss an exam without a documentable excuse you will get a zero!
If you have a schedule problem, you must let me know
beforehand in order to be able to take the makeup. If you go on
another class's field trip or to a sports event without telling me and
miss the first exam you can take the makeup but I will average in a 0 for
the exam! (See the note about excuses on the
homepage.)
- You can improve
an exam grade 1: Regrades -- Since we go over midsemester exams
in class, you will be able to get a good sense of how it was graded.
If you think the grader misunderstood what you were saying, or failed
to give you proper credit, you can apply to me for a regrade by writing
a clear description of why you think you should have more points
and turning it in with your exam. In addition to grading error, 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 will have to explain carefully in writing your argument.
Be
sure not to write on your exam itself since this will mean I would
have to look up the scanned exams to see what you originally wrote. If
you alter a graded exam and request a regrade I will automatically
reported it to the honor committee. Don't do it!
- You can improve an exam grade 2: Makeup exams -- Each midterm
exam will be followed by a makeup exam on the Thursday a week after the exam,
in the late afternoon. 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 my 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. Just
knowing "what are the right answers" on the first test is not enough!
- The final --
The final exam will be cumulative, but about half the exam will focus on
the material done after the second midterm. The final will be a little
less than twice as long as a one-hour midsemeter exam. In many semesters
I have been able to obtain a four-hour block for you to do the exam in
and I will try to arrange for this in this semester as well. This does
not mean you are getting a four-hour exam! This means you are getting four
hours to do a two-hour exam. Arrangements will be made for students who
have a conflict due to other exams. Please speak to me about any conflict
first since we do not want my class to inconvenience any other professors!
- You will have
to think on exams! -- Exam problems will not be standard end-of-chapter
problems. You will be expected to think, not replay a previously
memorized tape. Questions of the type found on my exams will be included
in the homework problems and problems from previous exams will be available
on our web site.
RETURNS
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This page prepared by
Edward F. Redish
Department of Physics
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
Phone: (301) 405-6120
Email: redish@physics.umd.edu
Last revision 27 December,
2010.