The actual grades are posted here. This page describes what the labels mean, as well as how your grade was computed.

The grades were last updated at 9:16 p.m. on Friday, April 30th. Note: I have now dropped your lowest quiz grade.

Here is an explanation of what each variable label refers to.

exam1 - exam4 - your grade on exams 1- 3.

quiz1 - quiz8 - your grade on quizzes 1 - 8. These are expressed as percentages correct. I have dropped your lowest quiz grade in the calculation of your grade, nonetheless, all 8 quizzes are listed here.

hmwk1 - hmwk2 - your grade for homeworks. These are expressed as percentages.

attend - your grade for section/lab attendance. This is expressed as a percentage.

gradett - your grade at this point in time--before the final. This is the grade you will get in the class if you do not take the final exam. If you are happy with this grade, there is no need to take the final. I explain below how this grade was computed.

How was your grade computed? Here is the formula I used to compute final grades:

gradet = .60*mean(exam1, exam2, exam3, exam4) + .20*mean(quiz1, quiz2, quiz3, quiz4, quiz5, quiz6, quiz7, quiz8) + .20*mean(hmwk1, hmwk2, attend, attend, attend, attend, attend).


A few things to note about this formula:

1. The average of your best four exams (at this point in the game, the only four exams you have taken) is weighted by 60%. In other words, your exams count toward 60% of your final grade.

2. The average of your quizzes counts 20% toward your final grade. Overall, people did fairly well on the quizzes, so I didn't drop any quiz grades. Updated on April 30th: I am now dropping the lowest quiz grade. Thus, the average of your quizzes is based on your 7 best quiz grades--not all 8 quiz grades.

3. The lab activities count 20% toward your final grade. Each assignment counts equally, with the exception of attendence, which I counted 5 times because I thought it was more important that the two homeworks.

4. You should be able to use this formula to calculate the grade you would receive if, for example, you were to drop exam 1 and substitute your final exam grade (say, a 95) in its place. This will give you a good sense of what you need on the final to achieve a specific grade in this class (and whether this is even possible in the first place).

5. If you try to calculate your grade yourself and find that it differs in some minor way from what we've posted, those difference are due only to rounding errors (or due to computational errors on your part). The grades posted here are the correct grades--the grades that consider the many decimal places that may exist in some of the averages--decimal places that can't be seen easily on your computer screen due to the limitations of printing extended digits. Grades will not be rounded up when all is said and done. Thus, if your grade is currently an 89.99999, don't assume I will round this to a 90 when I record the final grades.

6. I'm using the 10% rule for letter grades. A 90%-100%, for example, will be an A.