(see individual quiz stats at end of this page)

How Can You Judge How You Are Doing?

People get worried about what they believe are low scores on the quizzes. Partly, this is because people try to associate the scores with "Letter Grades". That is a big mistake that will only scare you, frustrate you and discourage you. You don't want this to happen to you because that will affect your attitude towards doing the assignments. And it turns out, they are a much more important key in determining your grade. Most people, if they devote the proper time, will get most HW and extra credit points. It is almost completely up to you as to how many points you get. That is, if you go over the checklist on the assignments, if you read the problem in the book carefully, and make sure you have completed everything - you are likely to get all points. If you understand that, you'll see that low quiz scores are not such a major deal. Consider an example:

A person gets most of the HW (165) and extra credit (25) points. (This is not that hard to do, you can even skip a whole assignment and still get all the points.) But a person's two best quiz scores are only 50 each. That means they will nearly have 290 points going into the final (165+25+50+50). This means if they get 110/175 on the final (this being 62% and what people normally people consider a D) still gives them 400 points for the summer - or a B! And this same person if they get 160/175 (91%) on the final gets an A for the course. To restate that, someone who doesn't do so hot on the quizzes, but does all the HW and extra credit and does reasonably well on the Final gets an A.

Another example. A person's two best quiz scores are 55 and a 65. Again, they get all of the HW and Extra Credit points. They will have 310 points going into the final and will only need 140/175 (80%) to get an A for the course.

STATS on 2008 Quiz Scores

THIS SUMMER	LAST SUMMER
2008 Quiz 1 Stats - Median:50 - 44 students Score 65-72 55-64 40-54 20-39 Number of Students 4 13 17 10 Percent of class 9% 30% 39% 23%	2007 Quiz 1 Stats - Median:63 - 31 students Score 70-79 60-69 50-59 43-49 Number of Students 7 11 11 2 Percent of class 23% 35% 35% 6%
2008 Quiz 2 Stats - Median:59 - 42 students Score 65-78 55-64 45-54 20-44 Number of Students 12 12 12 6 Percent of class 29% 29% 29% 14%	2007 Quiz 2 Stats - Median:54 - 31 students Score 65-77 55-64 45-54 37-44 Number of Students 9 5 12 5 Percent of class 29% 16% 38% 16%
2008 Quiz 3 Stats - Median:52 - 37 students Score 65-78 55-64 45-54 19-44 Number of Students 6 11 9 11 Percent of class 16% 30% 24% 30%	2007 Quiz 3 Stats - Median:41 - 30 students Score 60-67 50-59 40-49 18-39 Number of Students 3 1 14 12 Percent of class 10% 3% 47% 40%
2008 Final Stats - Median:127 -  38 students (out of 175 total points) Score 140-169 125-139 105-124 85-104 52-84 Number of Students 11 9 10 6 2 Percent of class 29% 24% 26% 16%   5%	2007 Final Stats - Median:127 -  30 students (out of 175 total points) Score 140-161 125-139 105-124 85-104 52-84 Number of Students 7 8 11 1 3 Percent of class 23% 27% 37% 3% 10 %