Detailed
grades will be distributed twice during the semester and the final
grade once, to encourage students to check for possible grading
errors. Students can calculate their grade at any time using
the Grade Calculation Sheet available on the Test
Materials page of the class web site. The grade
calculation method is outlined in the class
syllabus.
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Quizzes are late, and
will earn a zero (0) grade, if they are submitted after the instructor
has collected the quizzes from the class as a group.
No additional time
will be given for take-home quizzes because students have a
full week to finish a quiz, whereas only fifteen minutes is
usually alloted for in-class quizzes.
Quizzes are also a study
guide, as all of the questions from the exams come from
the quizzes.
Quizzes are true-false
questions; whereas, exams are multiple-choice.
A review of the quiz
answers will be held before an exam. See Exam Preview below.
The instructor must
see the completed activity and a signed
activity instruction sheet must be submitted before the
end of class for a grade to be given.
Activities are done
solo or in a group of two students. The instructor may change
the group participants at his discretion.
Activities are done
once, and are not done before or after the time alloted for each
(cannot be "done ahead" or "made-up").
Violation of the safety
rules may adversly affect a student's grade and participation
in subsequent activities.
See the class
syllabus for information on Term Paper grading.
A Topic
Approval Sheet and a Sources
Approval Sheet must be submitted on
time, as well as the paper itself, to earn a full grade. If
a topic is not submitted and approved, a zero (0) for the paper
may be received.
For more details about
the term paper, and help with it, begin with the MECH
1 Term Paper Page.
For additional help
with the paper, see the instructor during his Student
Time.
The Midterm
Exam is a fifty question (50), multiple-choice test. The
exam questions are taken from the quizzes that predate the Midterm
Exam. All quiz questions prior to any exam date are eligible
for an exam, including those called "extra" questions.
The Final Exam
is a one-hundred question (100), multiple-choice test, the questions
for which are also taken from all the semester's quizzes
and the Midterm Exam. It is comprehensive.
For test preview questions and materials, see the MECH
1 Tests Page.
Any math problems on
the exam will be completed as examples for the class.
The math review
problems may not use the actual values that will be used in
the test, but the procedure used to solve each problem will
be the same as the procedure for the math on the exam.
All the questions on
the quizzes leading up to the exam will be reviewed so that the
correct answers are communicated to all of the students present.
The instructor will
answer student questions concerning the exam and the prior quizzes.
A detailed list will
be distributed twice, once before each exam, in order to review
them to determine if the scores on the list are correct.
The detailed list will
include all the recorded quiz and activity grades up to that date.
This will allow a discussion
of questions and answers and to have a mistakenly recorded grade
corrected.
This opportunity will
be available up to and including the meeting just before the Final
Exam.
Documents that do not
have a grade from the instructor (are ungraded) will not be accepted.
Each question of a fifty-question
exam is worth 2 percentage points (from a total of 100%). For
a one-hundred question exam, each question is worth 1 percentage
point (from a total of 100%).
An analysis of the questions
missed by the highest few test scores may be used to determine if
all of the grades should be adjusted to compensate for possible
problematic questions.
This compensation
may occur only if there appear to be problems with exam questions
and, should it occur, no student will receive a score greater
than 100%.
During that time, students
may get answers to questions they missed and challenge test questions
they think may have problems.
The number of points
that a student may gain by successfully challenging questions will
be increased only if the successful challenges exceed the number
of points that may have already been adjusted, as described above.
During the review of
the Final Exam, the students will receive their overall grades that
will be recorded for the class.
The "overall
grades" distributed will consist of the final grade and
the cumulative grades for quizzes and other activities.
This last list will not detail every graded document.
A review of the Final
Exam may not happen if the exam is not administered before the last
class meeting. In such an instance, the review will be by
appointment. See the following section for details.
This allows the last
class meeting to be a review and discussion of the exam.
Once the test has been
reviewed, any documents (e.g., tests and answer sheets) that remain
unclaimed by the time the instructor leaves the classroom on the
last official day of class will be destroyed, removing the possibility
of the student reviewing graded papers (including the final exam).
The Final Exam answer
sheet may be taken home, but not the question pages.
If, for unanticipated
and unavoidable reasons (illness, inclement weather, etc.), the
final exam cannot be held before the last class meeting, students
may make an appointment to see the instructor during the first two
weeks of the following semester to review the test and obtain their
answer sheet.
After the first
two weeks, any unclaimed answer sheets and other exam materials
will be destroyed.
If the instructor,
who is a temporary (contingent) worker, is no longer employed
by the college, any review is likely impossible.
By using the Grade
Calculation Sheet on the Test
Materials page of each class' web site, and/or by seeing
the instructor during his student time.
A grade calculated early
in the semester may change substantially because a large portion
of the grade occurs late in the term.
Once the final grade
has been discussed and challenged in the Final Exam review session,
no grade will be adjusted further (*See Cal. Ed.
Code §76224 (a)).
If a student, for
example, is two-tenths of one percent below the cutoff for an
overall "A" grade for the class, that student will have earned
a "B" for the class unless they can prove an instructor error.
The grade cutoff
table is outlined on the syllabus and the cutoff values will
be followed.
Due to unanticipated
circumstances, such as illness, weather, natural or human-caused
disasters, unforeseen events, instructor error and/or school-initiated
changes, etc.
*(a) When grades are given for any course of instruction
taught in a community college district, the grade given to each student
shall be the grade determined by the instructor of the course and
the determination of the student's grade by the instructor, in the
absence of mistake, fraud, bad faith, or incompetence, shall be final.
. "I didn't have good grades until I started dancing,
because I didn't try — I didn't see the point. Once I realized
why I wanted to go to college, I started to study and do well.
I knew I had to have a certain GPA to get in." Kyle
Abraham (1977 - ) Choreographer,
dancer
