July 22, 2010
PHY 232C exam 3: Tuesday, July 27 4:40 - 5:40 in 1415BPS
The third exam will be on Tuesday, July 27th from 4:40PM until 5:40PM in Biomedical and Physical Sciences (BPS) room 1415. Some streets in and around the campus are closed for construction, so you should allow extra time to get to the exam location. The exam will be comprehensive, but will concentrate on the material in online chapters 22 through and including 25(homework sets 8 through 10). It will be based on both the readings and the homework. Some of the problems will be conceptual in nature and some will have numerical answers. There are 100 possible points on the exam however your percent score will be calculated relative to 90 possible points. So, scores over 100% are possible.
The exam is closed book, but you may use one 8-1/2 inch x 11 inch or smaller sheet of original (no copies) hand-written notes and equations. You may use both sides of your note sheet.
You should bring a few sharpened number 2 pencils, your student ID (or driver’s license) and a calculator (graphing calculators are OK). However, the use of cell phones for any reason is NOT permitted. Pencils and calculators will NOT be provided. Also as a courtesy to your fellow students, you should turn off all cell phones and pagers before entering the room.
When you enter the room, you pick up a bubble seat and sit in the row assigned to you based on your last name – the SEATING CHART WILL BE ON THE SCREEN. The exam will be handed out once all students are in their assigned rows. DO NOT open the exam until you are told to do so by an instructor. You can however, complete the student information section of your answer sheet. Make sure you include your student ID number and your name on the answer sheet. Put your name on the cover of the exam itself. When you are finished with the exam return both your answer sheet and your exam to an instructor or a TA.
You will have one hour to complete the exam.
In the exam section of the syllabus there is a link to some exam questions I have given in a previous courses.
The cover page for the exam can be found at the bottom of the table of contents in Lon-Capa. Some useful information is included on the cover page. Note: the exam cover page is for all of the mid-term exams and not all of the useful information listed here is applicable to this exam. There are a total of 20 questions on this exam.
The help room will not be open following the exam on Tuesday evening.
The summer schedule is shorter than the fall and spring semesters. As such, it was unavoidable to have homework due shortly following the first two exams. However, you do get a short respite after this exam; homework set 11 is not due until Thursday, August 5 at 5:00PM.
Richard Hallstein
May 14, 2010 (will resend on May 17, 2010)
Welcome to Virtual University. PHY 232C is now open. The course syllabus can be viewed at:
http://www.pa.msu.edu/courses/2010summer/phy232c/
Online reading, recorded lectures and homework sets are on Lon-Capa. In addition, there is a required textbook for this course (see the syllabus for details). There are instructions for using Lon-Capa in the syllabus. There are weekly homework sets due on Thursdays at 5:00PM. The first assignment is due on May 20th. All of the homework is inside the HOMEWORK folder at the bottom of the course table of contents.
There is a help room staffed by Graduate Teaching Assistants in The Strosacker Learning Center, Room 1248 Biomedical and Physical Sciences Building. The help room will be open Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Students should spend several hours per week, as needed, visiting the help room to work with other students and consult with teaching assistants. Both on and off campus students should visit the MSU campus for this purpose.
During help room hours, one graduate teaching assistant will provide online assistance via the post discussion option within Lon-Capa. Although you may get sufficient assistance on some of the less complicated questions via the “Post Discussion” option, you will get better service working with the graduate teaching assistants and other students in the help room.
There will be three midterms and one final exam given on the MSU campus – the dates, times and location are shown in the syllabus. There will be no make-up exams. However, if you miss a midterm exam for any reason you will be allowed to drop this exam and the midterm portion of your final grade will be based on the other two midterm exams. Only one midterm exam will be dropped – the final exam will NOT be dropped. If you take all three midterms, your lowest midterm exam score will be dropped when calculating your final grade.
If you are living or traveling far from the MSU campus at the time of the exam, beyond a reasonable commuting distance, or if you are traveling with an MSU-sponsored program, you may be able to arrange a proctored off-campus exam. Arrangements must be made well in advance of the exam – requests made after the deadline will not be accommodated and you will have to take the exam at MSU. See the exam section of the syllabus for details and deadlines for arranging an off-campus exam.
Also included in the exam section of the syllabus are sample exam questions asked in given in a previously offered courses.
Questions seeking help with a homework problem should be posted online using the “Post Discussion” option in Lon-Capa. Do not e-mail these questions directly to me. Using this option will allow others in the course to benefit from both the question and the response(s).
If you have an administrative question about the course, e-mail it to me and include the course title in the e-mail's subject line. If you do not include the course title in the subject line, the e-mail will likely go unanswered.
This message will be resent on Monday, May 17th.
Richard Hallstein
Instructor
Department of Physics and Astronomy
Last updated: May 14, 2010