EXAMS

• For each exam, each student should bring a #2 pencil,a calculator for numerical calculation (Graphing calculators are permitted; cell phones, PDAs and computers are NOT permitted) and a picture ID.
• All baseball caps or brimmed hats must be removed or turned backwards; remove caps or hats that cover ears.
• Headphones and unauthorized earpieces must be removed during exams.
• There will be three one hour midterm exams. The exams are closed book, but you may use one 8-1/2 x 11 inch or smaller sheet of hand-written notes and equations (you may use both sides of the sheet).
• There are no makeup 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. If you take all three midterms, your lowest midterm exam score will be dropped when calculating your final grade.
• At least 10% of the points on each midterm exam will come from modified* homework problems.
• Each midterm exam will have a correction exam assigned as a homework assignment in Lon-Capa. 30% of the positive difference between the correction exam and the in-class exam will be added to your in-class exam score as bonus. As such, the correction exam homework assignement can only add points to your midterm exam score. Only students taking the original exam will have access to the correction exam.
• Exam questions will be both numeric and conceptual, e.g. true/false, less than/greater than equal to, ranking, direction of vector, etc.Midterm exam 2 will have one modified* problem taken directly from mid-term exam 1. Midterm exam 3 will have one modified* problem from midterm exam 1 and one modified problem from midterm exam 2. These modified* problems could be multi-part.
• There will be one cumulative 2 - hour final exam. The exam is closed book, but you may use four 8-1/2 x 11 inch or smaller sheets of hand-written notes and equations (you may use both sides of the sheets) -- one sheet for each of the midterms and the last sheet for the material covered after the third midterm. The final exam will not be dropped -- it is University policy that students missing a final exam will receive a grade of 0 for the course.
• At least 25% of the points on the final exam will come from modified* midterm exam problems or modified* homework problems from the last homework set.
• If you are living or travelling 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 on the MSU campus.Click here for deadlines and details for arranging off-campus exams.
• Grading scales for exams will not be curved unless there was mis-wording or an error.

*-- Modified could mean that if the original problem gave x and asked for y, the modified problem might give y and ask for x. For conceptual problems, modified could mean covering the same concept.

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Last updated: August 31, 2011