PH253 final grades, mark 2

After going through the whole spreadsheet and looking at the final exams a third time, I decided to revise upward the partial credit on a couple of questions on the final. This will affect a lot (but not all) of you, depending on whether you chose to do those problems or not, and depending on what exactly you did. For some of you, the change was enough to affect your final grade.

I also went through everyone's final exam for a third time, and on a couple of exams I found that I had misunderstood the answer given, and you were owed more points.

Long story short, some grades needed to be revised.* Once I check my spreadsheet for what must be the 15th time, I am going to upload really final grades later this evening. I've been obsessing about this for three days now, but I think finally have gone over everything enough that I think it is consistent and fair.

*I didn't revise anyone's grade downward. If there was a grading error in your favor, it stayed.

PH253: preliminary grades on myBama

I've posted "final" grades on myBama, subject to the following qualifications:

1. I have to check my spreadsheet thoroughly to be sure all my calculations are correct.
2. I will have one more look at your final exams if you are on the borderline between two grades (I've graded them twice thusfar).
3. Some of you might still sneak in an extra-credit assignment or late HW by the end of Monday.  (HINT)

So, I may have to make revisions after I review everything again, but as of right now everything seems to be in order. If you feel there is a mistake, contact me ASAP. Ditto if you want to know your grade breakdown.

Overall, I think most of you will not be surprised by your grade - not many of you moved up or down greatly based on your final exam score. (The class average was 0.76% higher after the final, the final exam average was 82%.) Notably, however, a couple of you managed to pull out a passing grade based on a very impressive showing on the final, which was nice to see.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the semester, I certainly did.

PH253: more grades on Moodle

Just uploaded HW8 grades, which leaves only HW9 outstanding at the moment. I'll try to have that by the end of the week.

PH253: Moodle grade update

Moodle is up to date through HW7 now (as well as including late HW and exam 2 alterations).

PH253: Exam 2

Exam 2 grades are now on Moodle. You'll get them back tomorrow.

PH253: grades

Moodle grades are now updated through HW5. Your overall average drops the lowest HW set.

Later today I should have it updated through HW6 at least, and over the weekend Exam 2 will be there.

PH253: Exam 1 scaling

Long story short, it didn't really work out to simply add points to everyone's score or take the best 4 of 5. I suppose this is a common theme if you read the news, but either of those benefited the grade-rich quite nicely, but did little for those of you who really needed a boost. Luckily, our problem has a nice solution.

PH253: online grades

I now finally have the system set up so you can log in and see your grades (HW1-3 and Exam 1 right now). Since I am still young enough to be idealistic, I'm using an open source system called Moodle. Apparently you still have to pay if you want a sensible name. Instructions below the jump ...

Some random plots related to the exam: average score by question, percentage of you choosing that question, and grade distributions for raw scores (5 questions) and with the proposed scaling (best 4 out of 5). Click on the picture for a larger version.

More details to come as I think about this a bit more ...

PH255: Writing a scientific paper

Lab reports are a real pain, and I know many of you in PH255 have been struggling with how to go about writing a lab report. Here's how I usually go about writing a paper:

Homework template

This is the format I'd like you to use for homework problems. You don't have to print out the template exactly, you can just fill out a sheet of paper in the same fashion. The main point is that I'd like to ensure that you're solving problems in a logical, organized way, with clarity and precision. The idea is that at first this will help reinforce a general, systematic approach to problem solving that will serve you well when the material gets harder.

Your homework be graded on the appearance (if applicable) and quality of these items:

• Find/Given - what are you supposed to find, and what have you been given?
• Sketch - try to visualize the problem.
• Relevant equations - identify what basic equations might be of some help.
• Symbolic solution - without using numbers, algebraically find the desired quantity in terms of given quantities.
• Numeric solution - if given, plug in any numbers given. 
• Double check - using dimensional analysis, order-of-magnitude estimation, for example, see if your answer makes sense. In some cases, you might just solve the problem by a completely different technique.

I'll describe this in some detail in class, and will try to follow the template when I'm solving problems in class. The format isn't as restrictive as it might seem at first, a lot of students find that it actually helps them organize their thoughts and get started on a problem that seemed incomprehensible at first.

PH253: Final grades

I have graded the finals (twice, actually, to be sure) and put the results up on Moodle. Your letter grades are also up on myBama.

Your final exam scores and overall average now show up there; I will post the letter grades on myBama shortly. There are still some days to make changes if you notice errors, and feel free to email me with any questions.

PH253: grade update

HW9 & 10 grades are up on moodle now, as is the extra credit for the major field exam. For the major field exam, you get 2.5% times your listed score as extra credit added to your overall course grade. Your overall average includes this (as well as dropping the lowest homework). HW10 replaces your lowest non-dropped HW score, if it is sufficiently good.

For the final, since many of you are about to ask for last-minute suggestions:

I think at this point, just reading the exam & homework solutions is the best thing to do. Some of the final questions will be very, very similar to those on HW sets and the two exams. There won't be any surprises.

There will also be 1 or 2 very much like the practice problems, if you haven't been over them yet.

There won't really be anything on molecules, lasers, or periodic solids.

Extra-credit exam

For PH253, the aforementioned extra credit exam will give you a maximum 2.5% added on to your grade, scaled by your performance on the exam. It will not be specific to HW or Exam grades, it will simply add to your overall average.

PH253 & PH255: Extra credit exam

The details of the major field text ***NEXT WEDNESDAY**** (details of the extra credit for PH253 and PH255 to follow).

The Dept. of Physics & Astronomy would like all sophomore,
junior & senior Physics majors to take the Physics Major Field
Test (MFT) next week,

** Wednesday 28 April in room 203 Gallalee **

You may _START_ the exam any time between

**  1-2:30pm    **

You are allowed 2 hours for the exam.

PH253: Grades

Moodle is now updated through HW8. Only thing missing right now is HW8 ...

PH253: Exam 2 results

First: the grades for exam 2, and your updated overall average, are on moodle now. You'll get the exams back in lecture ... about 8.5 hours from now.

Second: it was not as bad as you had feared, but as a whole you did fall for the straightforward-but-mathematically-tedious traps (problems 2 & 6, mostly). The alternative was problems 4 & 5, which were very simple with little calculation if you remembered what to do.

Third: here are some interesting plots.

The distribution was far less weird this time -- about an equal number of A, B, and C grades, which is not bad at all. The average was 81.3%, with a standard deviation of 12.6% (N=46).

A few little things I found interesting:

• You did very well on #1, which means you really looked at the practice problems (it was the same).
• Only #2 was strangely low; it was hard, but it was also a homework problem (HW5).
• A surprising number of people chose number 6, despite it being the obvious trap on this exam. It was straightforward, but a serious time sink. Myself, I would have skipped it. I graded fairly generously on that one if you had algebraic issues but the method was basically ok.

More details and solutions tomorrow ...

PH253: Sucking a little bit less at grades

Moodle is now up to date (ostensibly) through HW 6 & 7.  HW8 should be graded and back to you on Tuesday, if all goes well. Let me know if you see any errors, etc. There is a new column "Overall average (with drops)" that accounts for dropping your lowest homework grade. The extra credit for doing part 4b on exam 1 and the make-up exam are now factored in as well.*

*If the make-up didn't help your exam grade, it got added to the overall homework effort. Part 4b of exam 1 added +1.5% to your exam score - no matter how high or low - for full credit.

Grades

UPDATE 2: Fixed. Sorry about that ... should not do these things so late at night I guess. Midterm grades on myBama should now be correct.
UPDATE: Made a mistake uploading to myBama. Fixing right now. Re-check your midterm grades in about 30 minutes ...

Moodle grades are now updated. This includes HW1-4, and the exam grade reflects the extra credit from the in-class makeup quiz.* It does not include the extra credit for doing #4b on the test yet ... (Click on the "moodle" tag below to find the instructions for logging in if you have forgotten.)

Homework and Exam 1 are both worth the same amount in the end, so your overall grade is an average of the two. In the end, I will drop your lowest homework, but I have not done this yet.

Please check to make sure everything seems to be in order. Wednesday, I'll have to upload midterm grades at some point.

Also, not doing the homework is really, really hurting some of you.

* If the in-class quiz did not help your exam grade, it counted toward your overall homework grade. This is not yet reflected in Moodle ... but your mid-term grade will reflect it, and I will try to post those revised numbers soon. This affects only about 20% of you.

PH253: Thursday's quiz

As I mentioned yesterday, Thursday (tomorrow), there is a quiz.

• Same material as exam 1.
• You can bring a formula sheet; same rules as the exam.
• One problem.
• The quiz grade will replace the lowest-scored problem on the exam. If you have a very high exam grade, I'll count it toward the homework. It will count toward your lowest non-dropped homework.
• It will take about 15 minutes.
• You should study the exam problems. 
• You can still do 4b from the exam for yet more points.
• If you are satisfied with your grade so far, you do not have to bother.
• It will happen at the end of the class period.
• If you can't make it to class, you should document your reason in some fashion.

Hopefully that's everything ... let me know if you have questions.