Exams
This page will contains information about the mid-term and final exams, including dates, times and locations, and results.
Your individual scores and solutions will be provided via the D2L system at learn.colorado.edu. There, you can also find homework solutions.
The final exam will be cumulative. It will cover all 3310 material that we have talked about in class (or used on homeworks), and all material from the whole term. I would guess about half will be "older stuff" (covered before midterm 2) and half, roughly, will be "newer stuff". 3320 exams can include anything we have assigned in the readings (text and lecture notes), will have a mix of homework-style calculations and concept-test style questions. (Note that all concept tests, including a few extras we didn't get to in class, are available from the concept test link on the home page. Ditto the preflights, and the in-class Tutorials are available from the calendar page)
See our "course learning goals" page for a pretty detailed list of topical areas that I think summarize what we've been up to this term.
Here is the "purple crib sheet" which will be available to you during the exam. IN ADDITION, you can bring a one page (one side!) hand-written crib sheet of your own per exam (so, two sides for exam 2, 3 sides for the final).
Here is the detailed grade information page (explaining how we compute course grades)
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Exam 1 |
Ch. 1-6 Review (anything we have focused on in class, my notes, or homeworks!) Ch. 7 (everything through 7.1 and 7.2, plus the additional "phasor/RLC circuit" stuff we did) Note: Chapter 7.3 and beyond material will NOT be on the first midterm. See "course learning goals" link for more details! |
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Exam 2 Th Nov 13 , 7:30-9:30 PM, Same location as last time |
This exam could be "cumulative" (highlights from earlier material, and Exam 1, may reappear) |
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Final exam Location will be our regular classroom |
The final *will* be "cumulative" (highlights from earlier material will reappear) Ch 11 (up to 11.1.3 only, plus Larmor's formula) Ch 12 (But I won't test you on 12.2.3 or beyond) |
Comments after Final Exam:
Average score was 76.5% (77.5 if I include that hard extra credit problem!) The median was 78.5, half did better than this! (Standard deviation is ~15%). Nicely done! I scored each lettered sub-part 5 points. The relativity question was the lowest scoring question on the test - more than half of you stuck to the old "2170-style" approach for 8a, to try to decide if "gamma" makes the given time longer or shorter, and almost every single person who did it that way got it backwards!! Use the Lorentz transformations, I don't think anyone who tried that approach got it wrong. (See the solutions over your break ;-)
For the overal course score, (which determines your grade), the class average was 83% (median is 86%) I am following the syllabus/grade pattern that I posted at the start of term closely. This is a super-high distribution: 41% of the class got A/A-, and another 30% got in the B- to B+ range. Nice work!
If you think a clerical error has been made in your grade, let me know ASAP.
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Comments after Exam 2:
Average score was 71.5 out of 90 points (79.5%), and EC boosted that to 81.6% The median was 84.7%. Great job, this seems like a fine job overall!
Remember that exams are only part of your grade. I estimate your "total course score" on D2L by averaging the two exams and then weighting that average the same as I will weight ALL exams (including the final) in the end. (In other words, I'm assuming your final will equal your average exam score so far. It's the best I can do at the moment). The average total course score after midterm 2 (including clicker and Piazza extra credit, HW #0-10, dropping one, and preflights 1-11, dropping one) is 81% (median is 84%. So, almost 2/3 of the class are getting A's and B's at this point. Nice!) For more details, see this grade link.
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Comments after Exam 1:
Exam 1 was a hard test! The average was 45 out of 66 possible points (that's 68%) The median was 46.5 points (70.5%)
I usually like to shoot for higher averages than this (for morale, if nothing else! :-) Sorry about that - I felt after Thursday night that it was a slightly too-long exam. Don't stress about your grade on it. I strongly suspect midterm #2 will go better! But, if you scored below (say, roughly) 50% (or simply if your score was less than you felt it should have been) don't hesitate to talk with me. Easiest if you just come to my office hours (Mondays are quiet enough) but if they are not convenient, contact me and we'll schedule a time.
Remember that exams are only part of your grade, the first midterm will ultimately count less than the other exams, and I do not assign grades based on individual exams! People ask if I "curve", and the answer is in the end, when we include all grades, if you have above 90% I guarantee you got an A (or A-), but if overall my exams were too hard then I might inch the cutoff down by a bit from that. (I will NEVER shift it up, though - I never curve *against* you!)
Also note that for your estimated total course score, the one that appears on D2L, I am grossly overweighting Exam #1 for right now (basically, I am assuming that Midterm 2 and the final will be the same as your Midterm 1, which means midterm #1 is currently accounting for 64% of your total grade, since in the end, exams all together are 64%!) That's just for estimation purposes, it's the most logical estimate I can make for right now.
Computing the total course score as best I can so far (using the formula in the detailed grade information page where as I just said I use your exam 1 as proxy for your total exam score for the term) the average course score is 76%. This includes HW0-4, preflights, and clicker extra credit. (Piazza extra credit is included but it's just a small addition to the clickers).