Mar 9
Dear PHY 231C students,
The second exam will be on Thursday, March 16 from 6:00PM until 6:50PM in
Chemistry (CEM) room 138. The exam will be handed out promptly at 6PM; students
arriving after 8PM will not be permitted to enter the room until after the
students who arrived promptly have started the exam.
The exam will concentrate on all material covered since exam 1 through and
including online lecture 8b (homework set 7). It will be based on the readings,
the online lectures and the homework. In addition, there will be one modified
question taken straight from our first exam on this exam.
Some of the problems will be conceptual in nature and some will have numerical
answers. There are a total of 15 separate responses on the exam. There are 50
possible points on the exam.
The exam is closed book, but you may use one *AND ONLY ONE* 8-1/2 inch x 11
inch or smaller sheet of original HAND-WRITTEN notes and equations. You may use
both sides of your note sheet. As was the case on exam 1, your note sheet will
be checked at least once during the exam. Any notes other than described in
the syllabus and restated here will be considered a violation of the
university's policy on academic integrity. As such, a non-droppable penalty
grade of zero for the exam will be given and an official report of academic
dishonesty will be filed with the university.
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, PDAs or computers 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
taking the exam, all baseball caps or brimmed hats must be removed or turned
backwards. Furthermore, all caps or hats covering the ears must be removed.
When you enter the room, sit in the row assigned to you based on your last name
(seating assignments will be displayed on the screen at the front of the room).
DO NOT open the exam until you are told to do so by an instructor. However, once
the answer sheets are handed out complete the student information section of
your answer sheet. Make sure you include your student ID number and your name on
the answer sheet. Make certain that your exam has your name and picture on the
cover sheet -- if it does not, you have the wrong exam! When you are finished
with the exam return both your answer sheet and your exam to an instructor or a
TA.
You will have fifty minutes to complete the exam.
The whole exam will be assigned again in the same form as a homework assignment
as a Correction Exam. The Correction Exam is optional. If you don't touch it,
you will NOT lose any points from your in-class exam. If your performance is
better on the Correction Exam than on the in-class exam, then 30 percent of
this positive difference will be added to your in-class exam score as a bonus.
The best strategy is to solve the Correction Exam perfectly to maximize your
gain. The Correction Exam will be available in the afternoon on Friday,
March 17 and will be due on Tuesday, March 21 at 11:59PM.
Some useful information is included on the cover page. The cover page for the
exam will contain the same information as is displayed on the practice exam's
cover page. The two sets of practice exams were outlined in an email sent
earlier today.
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.
To assist you in preparing for the exam, here is the point breakdown by
topic/chapter:
Work and Kinetic Energy: 11 points
Momentum: 8 points
Oscillations: 13 points
Rotation: 14 points
Exam 1 modified problem: 4 points
Further, there practice exam problem available.
The old practice exam problems compiled more than a few years ago applicable to
this exam are: Practice exam 1 #18 and 19; Practice exam 2 #1-7, 12 & 14-20;
Practice exam 4 # 1-7 & 9.
The new practice exam problems for exam 2 consist entirely of problems given on
these covered topics on our actual exam in the Fall of 2016 (more topics were
covered on that exam, so I've only included the problems applicable to our
coverage in this set of practice probelems). Solutions are given either by an
online lecture, a reference to a substantially similar problem in the required
text or to a substantially similar problem in the online lectures.
Lastly, after each correction assignment due date, a solution is made
available. If you are unsure about the process of solving the exam one
problems, you should review this solution. It has the same form as the
solutions to the new practice problems.
The due date for Homework set 5 is Tuesday, March 28 at 11:59PM. This set is
a long set, so you should get started on it early.
Richard Hallstein
Feb 9
Dear PHY 231C students,
In preparation for this Thursday's exam, I wanted to give you some additional
information. First, if you have not done so, you should review the study
suggestions in the syllabus:
http://www.pa.msu.edu/courses/2017spring/PHY231C/Study/Study.htm
I'll reiterate one point in this forum. In general, all of our exams will be
organzied in the order the material is covered in class. This will help you in
both organizing a good set of handwritten notes and with recall when taking the
exam. One caveat to this organization style, sometimes the most challenging
qustion on an exam is early on the exam. If you're stuck on such a question,
make an educated guess and move on (don't use all your time on one question).
For this Thursday's exams, here is how points are distributed:
1D mootion: 15 points
2D motion: 17 points
Force: 18 points
You are also resposnible for units.
Richard Hallstein
Feb 4
Dear PHY 231C student,
At the bottom of this message, you will find confirmation of
the status of both your pre-course survey bonus and your
pre-course diagnostic bonus. These bonuses will be added to
your final average.
Your pre-course survey bonus is either +0.5% if you chose to
participate in the survey or 0% if not. Your bonus is shown
below after 'PCSB%added'.
Your pre-course diagnostic bonus to be added to your final
average is either 0.5% if you chose to participate or
0% if not. Your bonus is shown below after 'PCSB%added'.
Even if you chose not to participate in one or either of
these opportunities, you can still participate and receive
the bonus for the post-course versions of each.
Richard Hallstein
Feb 2 4:25PM
Dear PHY 231C students,
The first exam will be on Thursday, February 9 from 6:00PM until 6:50PM in the
Chemistry (CEM) room 138. The exam will be handed out promptly at 6PM; students
arriving after 8PM will not be permitted to enter the room until after the
students who arrived promptly have started the exam.
The exam will cover everything through and including online lecture 4 (homework
set 4). It will be based on the readings, the online lectures and the homework.
Some of the problems will be conceptual in nature and some will have numerical
answers. There are a total of 15 separate responses on the exam. There are 50
possible points on the exam.
The exam is closed book, but you may use one 8-1/2 inch x 11 inch or smaller
sheet of original HAND-WRITTEN notes and equations. You may use both sides of
your note sheet. Your note sheet will be checked at least once during the
exam. Any notes other than described in the syllabus and restated here will be
considered a violation of the university's policy on academic integrity. As
such, a non-droppable penalty grade of zero for the exam will be given and an
official report of academic dishonesty will be filed with the university.
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, PDAs or computers 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
taking the exam, all baseball caps or brimmed hats must be removed or turned
backwards. Furthermore, all caps or hats covering the ears must be removed.
When you enter the room, sit in the row assigned to you based on your last name
(seating assignments will be displayed on the screen at the front of the room).
DO NOT open the exam until you are told to do so by an instructor. However, once
the answer sheets are handed out complete the student information section of
your answer sheet. Make sure you include your student ID number and your name on
the answer sheet. Make certain that your exam has your name and picture on the
cover sheet -- if it does not, you have the wrong exam! When you are finished
with the exam return both your answer sheet and your exam to an instructor or a TA.
You will have fifty minutes to complete the exam.
The whole exam will be assigned again in the same form as a homework assignment
as a Correction Exam. The Correction Exam is optional. If you don't touch it,
you will NOT lose any points from your in-class exam. If your performance is
better on the Correction Exam than on the in-class exam, then 30 percent of
this positive difference will be added to your in-class exam score as a bonus.
The best strategy is to solve the Correction Exam perfectly to maximize your
gain. The Correction Exam will be available in the afternoon on Friday,
February 10 and will be due on Tuesday, February 14 at 11:59PM.
Some useful information is included on the cover page. The cover page for the
exam will contain the same information as is displayed on the practice exam's
cover page. The two sets of practice exams were outlined in an email sent
earlier today.
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.
The due date for Homework set 5 is Tuesday, February 21 at 11:59PM. This set is
a long set, so you should get started on it early.
Richard Hallstein
Feb 2 9:37AM
Dear PHY 231C student,
The only method I have to communicate to you important events about our class is
via Lon-Capa's mail system. Every message I send to the class will be sent as a
critical message. This means, until you click the 'move to inbox' button at the
bottom of the message, the message will continually pop up while you work on any
Lon-Capa material. I know it can be a bit annoying, but it is necessary so you
do not miss any important announcements. It is easily rectified via the move to
inbox and you will not lose the message by moving it to your inbox.
Richard Hallstein
Feb 2 9:31AM
Dear PHY 231C student,
This is a courtesy reminder that the tuition refund drop deadline is tomorrow,
Friday, Feb 3 at 8PM. If you plan on dropping the course, you should do so
prior to that deadline.
Richard Hallstein
Feb 2 9:06AM
Dear PHY 231C student,
There are two sets of practice exams available to you in preparation for our
exams.
The old practice exams and applicable material form the old practice exams for
each exam are outlined in the calendar section of our syllabus. Each problem on
these old practice exams has a solution available in the form of an online
lecture. Applicable problems from this old set are in multiple practice exams.
for example, most problems for old practice exam 1 are applicable to our exam 1
and a couple of problems from practice exam 2 are applicable to our exam 1.
Why? These exams were made when we used a different required text and some
material was covered in a different order.
The new practice exam problems will be exam specific. In fact, each question in
these new practice exams was on a midterm exam for this course in the Fall
semester of 2016. However, in the Fall more topics were included on each
midterm, so some of the new practice exam problem sets will not be as long as
our exam. The solutions to these problems will take on one of three forms:
1. A pdf referencing material already available online in the course (online
lectures, online example problems, old practice exam problems).
2. A pdf referencing material covered in our required text (this material will
be *very* similar to the practice exam problem).
3. A new online lecture for material not very similar to examples already worked
out in the course.
Even if you are able to work out the practice exam problems successfully (old or
new), it is worthwhile to take a look at the video solutions, as I tend to give
more information there than just the solution to the one question. I'd also
strongly advise trying the practice exam problems armed just with a calculator
and your notes prior to viewing the solutions.
All of the old practice exam problems have been available since the start of the
semester. The new practice exam problems/solutions will become available on the
following dates:
New practice exam 1: available now
New practice exam 2: available March 1
New Practice exam 3: available April 5
New practice exam including problems after exam 3: April 26
Note: final is comprehensive,but this last practice exam only covers the
material at the end of the course. All practice exams are applicable to the final.
Lastly, I want to reiterate every problem on all of these practice exams was
given to students on a PHY 231C exam last semester.
Richard Hallstein
Jan 16
Dear PHY 231C student,
My office hours for the semester are Tuesdays 11AM - noon and will be held in the Strosacher Learning Center (1248BPS) or by appointment in my office (1253BPS).
The Strosacher Learning Center(aka the help room) is located in room
1248BPS.
While the general physics help room hours are Monday through Thursday 9AM-9PM
and Friday 9AM to 7PM, we will have learning assistants assigned specifically to
PHY 231/231C during only certain hours. Beginning tomorrow, Tuesday 1/17 it will be staffed.
Here are the 231/231C specific hours:
Mondays: 10AM - 6PM AND 7PM - 9PM
Tuesdays: 9AM - 9PM
Fridays: noon - 3PM AND 3:30PM - 7PM (Note: on Friday the building will be locked at 6PM, but the help room will remain open until 7PM).
Richard Hallstein
Jan 14
Dear Students in PHY 231C,
We are trying to obtain information on the conceptual preparation of our
incoming students for this class. To this end, we have prepared a timed
pre-introductory physics course diagnostic consisting of multiple-choice
questions, which do not require any numerical calculations. In addition, we'd
like to you to participate in a survey meant to gauge students' attitudes about
physics. This second survey is untimed and there are no right/wrong responses.
You will get 0.5% extra credit counting towards your grade just for
participating for in each of these optional diagnostics/surveys (if yo do both
it is +1%). To emphasize, this is a participation bonus and is in no way linked
to your performance on the diagnostic. Please take up to 50 minutes to answer
these 30 conceptual questions this timed diagnostic, and please, complete the
entire test in one sitting without consulting any reference materials.
The survey includes a permission form in which you can either consent we use
your responses or decline it. In either case, you can take the survey and
receive the participation bonus.
This diagnostic and survey is available for you in Lon-Capa to take now through
next Friday, Jan 20 at 11:59PM.
Look for a folder called "Pre-course diagnostic" in LON-CAPA inside the PHY 231C
class and a second folder called "Pre-course Survey".. You can click on eac
folder anytime between now and 1/20.
Please take your time and read every question carefully. You are not expected to
be able to answer every question on the diagnostic. You submit your responses
just like you do on the third homework problem entitled "How to submit answers
to bonus" in set one. When you answer a question during the diagnostic, LON-CAPA
will not give you an immediate "Correct" or "Incorrect" message. It will just
simply say "Answer Submitted...". You will not have access to your score,
however next week I will send an email to your Lon-Capa mail confirming your
participation credit. You are allowed to go back and change your answer, if you
think you picked an incorrect answer. You will have 20 tries on each question.
All your submissions will be stored, but only the last submission will be used
for each question.
We value your input and want only serious attempts at completing the diagnostic.
If you don't know the answer to a question, then guessing is allowed. However,
simple submission patterns(like AAA..., or BBB...) or rapidly clicking on any
response throughout the diagnostic will be filtered out from the diagnostic or
the survey. Lon-Capa allows me to easily check the time spent on each problem in
the diagnostic. Any students having there submissions filtered out for the
reasons described above will also forfeit the participation bonus.
At the end of the semester (4/28 through 4/30), a post course diagnostic and a
post course survey will be given for another 0.5% participation extra credit for
each of them. This too, will be a participation bonus and not linked to your
performance on the post course diagnostic. Any results produced by this study
will not contain your name or any other personal information about you.
If either of these are not showing up in Lon-Capa, you will need to exit Lon-
Capa and re-login. When changes are made to the course (making material
available, exams scores, etc), a fresh login is required to see them.
Thank you very much for taking the diagnostic and the survey!
Richard Hallstein
Jan 6 and Jan 9
Dear PHY 231C student,
Welcome to the fall semester of PHY 231C – the course is now open and available.
You are receiving this message because you are enrolled in PHY 231C section 730 or section 731. Please read this message carefully; it contains a significant amount of important information about the course. A copy is posted in the announcement section of the syllabus.
The required text book is Rex & Wolfson: Essential College Physics, Volume 1. It is sold at the MSU bookstore, at SBS on Grand River and at many online retailers. This class will use LON-CAPA. LON-CAPA is a computerized homework and exam management system developed right here at MSU. We will NOT use d2L whatsoever in this course. Since this is an online class, you are not required to purchase an i-clicker.
Please visit www.loncapa.msu.edu and log in using your MSU Net ID and password. Select the "PHY 231C, Spring 2017 " class. The first item on the top is the syllabus. You can also review the syllabus without logging in to Lon-Capa here:
http://www.pa.msu.edu/courses/2017spring/PHY231C/ Read *all* sections of it carefully. This is the official syllabus of the class and contains information like important dates (exams & homework), bonus point opportunities, homework information, exam information, grading, etc.
The next item is a folder containing the online lectures for the course. All of the online lectures and the associated homework sets are available in Lon-Capa at the start of the semester. The Online Lectures folder contains the lectures specifically designed for this online course; they are in the form of narrated PowerPoint presentations with example problems and demonstrations. Embedded within the online lecture folders are bonus homework questions. These questions are optional and can only help your score in the course. Most of these questions, relate at least in part to the assigned reading and/or the online lecture immediately preceding the question. These questions are programmed in exam mode (multiple choice) with correct/incorrect feedback disabled; the correct answer will be available after the due date. The discussion board on these bonus questions is disabled. No hints or solutions will be provided for these extra credit bonus problems.
The next folder is a folder containing four sets of practice exams with video solutions. These were made a little over five years ago, but are still applicable. However, when making these practice problems we used a different text and some material was covered in a different sequence, so the problems applicable to each exam are scattered over multiple practice exams. About a week before each exam, I will add addditional practice exam problems coded in Lon-Capa (no credit for completing these problems) and video solutions will also be available to these new practice problems. These new problems will be specific to our exam coverage (i.e. not spread over multiple practice problem sets). In an effort to give you more practice exam problems/solutions I am keeping the old practice exam problems available to you.
A reliable high speed internet connection is required, as is a computer with the ability to view flash video. The computer will need a current, supported operating system and a browser running HTML5 to use all the options available in the online lectures. There is an inconvenient bug you would only encounter if you happen to have a Windows computer with (1) a touch screen AND (2) a physical keyboard and/or mouse (including a track pad); in this case the video controls will not function properly in Chrome or Firefox (they’ll play, but rewind and other go to controls will not work), so you would need to use Internet Explorer where all controls function properly. Tech Smith's Camtasia software is used to make these videos. Tech Smith has recently released a new version fixing this bug and I am in the process of re-publishing all resources so they function properly on all modern browsers. this will be done at least 2 weeks prior to the due date for the associated homework. Currently, all lectures associated with material through and including set 3 (due Tues., Jan 31 have been updated).
The next folder will contain the homework for the course. There are weekly homework sets that are due on Tuesdays at 11:59PM. The first homework set is due Tuesday, January 17 at 11:59PM. You should not wait until the last minute to do the assigned homework -- extensions on homework will not be granted.
The last two folders are a timed pre-course diagnostic and an untimed pre-course survey. Both will be available to complete this weekend and both come with a 0.5% participation bonus. Both of these will be available from Friday, Jan 13 at 12AM until Friday, Jan 20 at 11:59PM. Absolutely no extensions will be given.
If you are living or traveling far from the MSU campus at the time of an 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 posted in the syllabus will not be accommodated and you will have to take the exam at MSU. For arrangement details and arrangement deadlines, see the link in the exam section of the syllabus.
Our three midterm exams are on Thursday evenings: Feb 9, Mar 16 and Apr 13 at 6:00PM in 138CEM. An alternate session will be offered for class conflicts only. If you have a class scheduling conflict, you will need to provide docmentation of the conflict (a screenshot of your official class schedule) and I will arrange an alternate time for the exam earlier in the day starting at 6:30AM. If the conflict is work related, you should make arrangements with your employer to get this time off.
You are encouraged to come to the Strosacker help room with your questions. Our Teaching Assistants will be more than happy to assist you in finding your way to the answers to our homework questions. However, they are instructed not to simply solve these problems for you. The Strosacker help room is in 1248 BPS and is usually open from 9:00AM to 9:00PM Monday through Thursday and 9:00AM-6:00PM on Fridays. You are welcome to go to the help room during any of its open hours, but there will be designated times when TAs specifically assigned to PHY231/231C will be available. I will send you an email when regular help room hours begin and when we have 231/231C specific hours set.
You are encouraged to use the discussion board inside LON-CAPA. If you don't understand a problem or you need help, just click on the "Post discussion" link and post your question. Try to be specific in your request – statements like “help” or “I don’t understand” do not give us any idea about what is giving you difficulty. Do not use email for help on the homework questions. With five hundred students in the course and the second semester course, it is simply impossible to answer all potential homework questions individually. Further, more likely than not, others will have the same question and unlike email, everyone can then benefit from your question and the subsequent response(s). If you know the answer to a fellow student’s question, just post your answer. Last of all, please refrain from simply posting a formula without any context or discussion. Most often, the person posting the formula understands where it came from and would be able to find a similar relationship when it is encountered on say, an exam. Whereas, those using such a formula without understanding where it came from are quite often lost when encountering the similar situation on an exam.
Hope you have a great semester both here and in your other courses,
Richard Hallstein
(BPS 1253, (517) 884-5509, hallstein@pa.msu.edu)
Last updated: December 21, 2016