MO640 - Grading Scheme

      Created: 2015-02-24
      Modified: 2015-03-07: NSQ becomes negative; formulas adjusted
    

There will be four sources of credit for the grade:

• the open-ended exams;
• the multiple-choice exams;
• submission and use of multiple-choice questions;
• exercise solving;

Undergraduate students will also have:

• a final examination

as required by the University. In addition, bonus points may be awarded during the term, for complete and correct answers to specially challenging questions that may arise in the course.

We will have two open-ended exams during the term. They will be written tests containing four questions, to be solved in 01:40 hours (one hour and forty minutes). The questions will be algorithmic or statistical problems, or will require short essay answers. Exams are graded in a 0-10 scale, and will contribute 20% (first open-ended exam) and 40% (second open-ended exam) to your final grade. The second exam is worth more because it covers more material. The exams are strictly individual, closed-book tests.

We will also have two multiple-choice exams during the term. Their duration is also 01:40 hours (one hour and forty minutes). Exams are graded on a 0-10 scale, and will contribute 10% (first multiple-choice exam) and 20% (second multiple-choice exam) to your final grade. The second exam is worth more because it covers more material. The exams are strictly individual and closed-book.

The multiple-choice exams will have the following format. On the designated day, students will sit in the back, leaving the first few rows empty. The instructor will then call students in turns to the front row, and will hand each one a sheet of paper containing their name and the question. Each student will have up to 4 (four) minutes to answer the question, marking one of the alternatives in the handed sheet, and returning it to the instructor. After that, the student will leave the front row and return to her seat. All students will answer the same number of questions, usually three or four, and therefore may be called several times to the front row. These exams will also be graded on a 0-10 scale, with the grade proportional to the number of correct answers, e.g., grade 0 for zero correct answers, and grade 10 for all answers correct.

Questions for the multiple-choice exams are taken from a question pool, including questions submitted by the students during the semester. Each question used in the exams will add 0.1 to the final grade of its originator. Questions may not be used in exams more that one time per semester. Each student must submit at least one multiple-choice question, related to the week's topics, until 23:59 of each Friday, provided there was at least one new topic in that week. Students who fail to submit will loose 0.1 in their final grade per missed submission. The course diary will contain a record of the submissions.

The format for multiple-choice questions is: a stem followed by five alternatives, with the last alternative being always "none of the above". The author must be identified in the question explicitly by the phrase "Original idea by: " in the end of the post. The stem and/or alternatives may contain figures. Questions must be submitted through an individual blog created by each student specifically for this purpose. Each submission will be a post in this blog. The students must create their blogs right after the first class, on Course Presentation, and email the instructor with the blog's URL as soon as possible. The instructor will follow each such blog to keep track of new posts. The post's time stamps will be used to check the submission deadline.

NOTE: Exceptionally this semester, students can either create a new question or translate to English an existing question in the Portuguese question pool on a week topic. In this case, after the "Original idea by:" indication, students will add an "Translation help by:" indication, and their name.

Malformed questions, with more than one correct alternative, too easy or too difficult, etc., may, at the instructor's discretion, not make it into the pool. The instructor may also edit questions that would otherwise be discarded, keeping the authorship indication. The order of alternatives may also be changed by the instructor, but keeping "none of the above" as the last one.

Students must not indicate the answer in their posted questions. Each question must, of course, have one and only one correct alternative. There will always be at least one correct alternative, because of the "none of the above" item. If there are several correct alternatives, and the question ends up being used in an exam, the author will not receive credit for it. On the other hand, the student who answers it will get credit for choosing any of the correct alternatives.

The four source of credit, contributing 10% to the final grade, will be due to written solutions to exercises. In each class, a few students will be asked to write down the solutions to some of the exercises for that lecture. These will be graded in a 0-10 scale and their average for each student will be added to this student's grade with a weight of 10%. We will try and balance the number of such assignments each student receives, so as to make them approximately equal for all.

All in all, the final grade of each student is given by:

Final grades will be transformed into letter grades in accordance with the following table:

The "Borderline" categories above will be decided by the instructor, based on his own impression of the student's performance in the course, including factors such as commitment to the course, clarity on written solutions and exams, evolution during the term, and possibly an interview with the student.

For undergraduate students, we have somewhat different rules. Their grade in numeric. The table therefore does not apply. If their final grade is less than 5, they have the right to take a final examination. What goes into their records is then the average between final grade and grade on final exam. Grades greater than 10 go into the records as 10.

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