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Grade
Computer
How to use: the
grade
computer will give your current course average as well as tell you what
you need to get on the next exam in order to have a target course
average. You may also play with entering as many hypothetical
grades as you wish to see what effect they will have on the final grade. You will need to
provide all the fields up to at least exam 1 in order for the computer
to work. The maximum non-exam total has been
filled-in and will be updated periodically. If the information is
out of date, you may enter the newest data. Keep in mind that
exam grades are entered on a 0-100 scale. Example: you have
a worksheet score of 13/15, two quiz scores of 14/20 and 17/20
(worksheets and quizzes are the "non-exam scores"), and you have two
exam scores of 37/50 and 45/60. Enter in the first three rows: 44 and 55 (13+14+17 and 15+20+20) "Course average"
will
tell you what grade you have based only on the elements earned so
far. The fields under it give you the grade (on a 0-100 scale)
you
need on exam 3 in order to have a desired course average once exam 3 is
included in the computation. If any of those numbers is higher
than 100, the desired course average cannot be achieved. If you,
for example, now enter the number from "80 average" into the (empty)
exam 3 field and click "compute" again, the course average will be
about 80% (allow for inexactness here because of rounding). You
may enter hypothetical grades for exams 3 and further to explore
what happens to the final grade. Note 1: the computer drops your lowest exam score if you give it more than one exam. It also takes this approach when it computes the grade necessary on your next exam in order to have a target grade. Therefore, it may happen that the computer reports you need a 0 on the next exam, say exam 3, in order to have, for example, an overall 70 average. What this means is that on your previous exams you have earned enough so that you have a 70 average based just on your first two exams. Hence, even if you scored low on exam 3 the first two exams will support an overall 70 average because exam 3 would be dropped. Now, it would be an extremely bad idea to decide, for example, that you don't need to take exam 3 because you already have a 70 average. Because when exam 4 comes around and you score poorly, you won't have a possible better grade from exam 3 to shore it up. Try entering "0" into exam 3 and see how much you will need on exam 4 to sustain a 70 average. Note 2: the computer assumes that non-exam scores are always 15% of the grade. Note 3: the computer ignores any information after the first blank exam field (try it: if you enter just exams 1 and 3 you will see that nothing changes after you alter exam 3). |
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