MIDTERM GRADE INFORMATION 88-220, Policy Analysis I, Fall, 1998; IMPORTANT INFORMATION: Friends, The midterm grade is designed to give you information. The letter grade you receive only indicates how you are doing relative to your classmates. If you get an A, you are doing much better than average, a B indicates above average, a C indicates average or slightly below, a D indicates below average, and an R indicates much worse than average. When final grades are calculated, much more consideration will be placed on first trying to place each student within a group that deserves a similar grade, then trying to make the best case for each student to have him or her moved to a higher category based on unusual external circumstances, and finally assigning grades appropriate to each group of students. It is likely that such a process, if it were done today, would not result in anyone receiving a lower grade than indicated, and might well allow some to receive a higher grade. NOTWITHSTANDING THE PREVIOUS SENTENCE, DO NOT IGNORE THE INFORMATION INHERENT IN YOUR MIDTERM GRADE! If you received a D or R at midterm, you are in SERIOUS trouble, and you need to do something about it NOW. I am very willing to help in any way that I can, but YOU need to take responsibility for initiating and following up on actions that will better your grade. COME AND SEE ME, NOW! If you are getting a C, you should also come and see me, as many such students, if they so desire, have been able to alter a few behaviors and consequently learn and understand the material in such a way that they can achieve much higher grades by the end of the semester, if they initiate some action now. If you are getting a B, good job, make a few adjustments and strive for an A. Come and see me if you want some suggestions. If you are getting an A, then please continue the fine work, and also consider volunteering to help some of your other classmates achieve a better understanding of the material. This only takes a small commitment of time (say one or two hours a week), and in the process you will often learn a lot more about the material---teaching is an easy route to learning. --John ----------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------- What graded material is left in the semester: Homework constitutes 40% of your final grade. We have done about 1/2 of all the homework assignments, thus you have about 20% of your final grade remaining in homework. The first midterm counted for 20% of your grade. The second midterm (coming up on 21 October) and the last exam count 20% each, thus you have 40% of your grade left in this category. To re cap, there is roughly: 20% of the grade left on homework, and 40% remaining on exams (the next midterm is 22 October). ----------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------- How was the midterm grade calculated? Your midterm grade was calculated as follows: 1) If you had any missing homework, you received a 0 on that homework. You should double check with us if you think we may have inadvertently missed one of your homeworks (we will also try and send out notices to those of you with missing grades, but it is still your responsibility to check---David will be happy to check your information by request). 2) A midsemester_homework_score was calculated by taking the sum of your points on the four homeworks, and multiplying this sum by 5. Thus, midsemester_homework_scores ranged from 0 to 200 points. IMPORTANT NOTE: Although we will drop your lowest homework score in calculating your final grade, we did not do this for midsemester, as we felt that keeping it in provides some useful information. If you failed to turn in an assignment, the 0 you received will have a big impact on your midsemester_homework_score---please make sure that you turn in EVERYTHING else on time, so that this effect will be mitigated. 3) Your final_midsemester_score was calculated as follows: final_midsemester_score = (midsemester_homework_score + exam_1_score)/4 Thus, these scores ranged from 0 to 100, and are composed of 1/2 homework and 1/2 exams. (The final grade will be 40% and 60% respectively.) 4) Your midsemester letter grade was calculated as follows: A >= 90 B >= 84 C >= 74 D >= 66 R < 66 Again, these grades are for your information, and do not reflect what your actual letter grade would be if these were final grades. (As a rough guide, reduce all of the above cutoffs by 3 points.) --------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------- Here is the final distribution of midterm grades: Variable N Mean Median TrMean StDev SEMean MidSem 102 78.913 80.065 79.171 8.374 0.829 Variable Min Max Q1 Q3 MidSem 58.380 92.500 72.720 85.442 Below is the steam and leaf plot. First column is cumulative count up and down from the median. Second column is the tens, last column is one number for each person with that last number in their index score. Stem-and-leaf of MidSem N = 102 Leaf Unit = 1.0 2 5 89 3 6 1 4 6 3 8 6 4445 12 6 6677 20 6 88999999 23 7 011 32 7 222333333 42 7 6666777777 51 7 888999999 51 8 00000111111 40 8 2333 36 8 44444444455555 22 8 667777 16 8 88899999 8 9 000111 2 9 22 Histogram of MidSem N = 102 Midpoint Count 60 3 *** 64 5 ***** 68 12 ************ 72 12 ************ 76 10 ********** 80 20 ******************** 84 18 ****************** 88 14 ************** 92 8 ********