GENERAL GRADING POLICY

SCORING

Written work will be judged on the basis of completeness, legibility and correctness. Strings of formulas without explanation will not be accepted. Paragraph organization (where appropriate), complete sentences and correct punctuation are expected.

WEEKLY WORK

I do not allow weekly work (homework, quizzes) to be ``made up''. Instead I discard the two lowest scores at the end of the semester. I am not discarding these scores because I am a nice guy. I am discarding them because there are times when you have a legitimate reason to miss a quiz, and a policy of discarding the lowest two scores allows you to know (in advance) that you have nothing to worry about if you have to miss a quiz. You just can't miss too often!

Sometimes a student will tell me that s/he has already missed two quizzes and now s/he has to miss a third, but for a perfectly justifiable reason this time! My response is: All reasons are perfectly justifiable in this class. But you are only excused twice. (In other words, NO MAKE-UPS!)

HOUR TESTS

I allow students to make up hour tests, provided that they missed the original test for a good reason. But one should try to take the original test if possible. In the first place, one usually feels less pressure taking a test with a roomful of other people who are taking the same test than taking a test in a room by oneself. Moreover, the make-up tests I give are NEVER easier than the original! I try to to see that make-up tests are exactly as difficult as the original, but that is hard to do.

FINAL EXAM

If you miss the final exam, then because of time constraints during finals week you probably can't take a make-up test before class grades are due. If you had a passing grade prior to date of the final exam, and then you miss the final exam, you probably will get a grade of ``Incomplete'' for the course. You will have to make up the Incomplete during the following semester. If you had a failing grade prior to the final, and then you miss the final, you will get a failing grade and not an Incomplete.