Dear Students in PHY 183B and 233B,

This is a long message, but please, read it and save it. It is about
our first exam, mostly focusing on the material and LON-CAPA. Another
message will be sent out about the proctoring procedure.

You are going to take Exam #1 online. Between June 10th, Monday
6:00 PM eastern time and June 11th, Tuesday 4:30 PM eastern time
you will have a 22.5 hour long time window to start to take Exam #1.
Exam #1 is one hour long. Once you start the exam, a timer starts
inside LON-CAPA. When the time is up, the contents of the exam folder
will become hidden. The timer cannot be stopped! The timer will be
displayed on the top right of the LON-CAPA window.

By now you probably scheduled your proctoring for Exam #1 with Examity.
If not, please do it soon, don't wait until the last moment. If you
schedule the exam in the last 24 hours before you plan to take it, an
extra $5 on-demand scheduling fee will be charged. The previous
message explained everything about the scheduling. Another message
after this one will explain the proctoring process itself.

The exam is going to be based on the first three homework sets, and
chapters 1 through 4 from the text book.

For the exam you will need a generic handheld scientific calculator
(with sqrt, sin, cos, tan, exp, ln, rad, deg) with fresh batteries.
Graphing calculators are allowed, but are not necessary. A one-page,
one-sided, hand-written help sheet is allowed with formulas you think
you will need. You can also have scrap paper. Please, also have your
picture ID ready, the proctor will ask for it. You will need the same
picture ID you uploaded to your Examity Profile.

The exam will have about ten problems. Some of the problems will have
more than one part. The questions will be multiple choice type, some
numerical and some conceptual. The problems will be very similar to
the homework problems, so the best way to prepare for the exam is to
go through all the questions in the homework sets.

Some of the students had a late or a slow start. The old homework sets
are now extended. This is a great opportunity to catch up.

A practice exam and an answer key is now available on the
web.pa.msu.edu/people/nagy_t/ page. Try to take the practice exam under
realistic conditions: alone in a quiet room with a calculator and with
your help sheet only in 60 minutes or less. When you are done, you will
be able to grade yourself using the answer key. Worked out solutions
will be available on Saturday.

After the exam you will get a second chance to answer the same set of
questions as a homework. It will be called "Correction exam". You can
work on the correction exam for several days, not just for one hour.
It will not be timed, but it will have a due date and time. You will
find the correction exam inside LON-CAPA in the "Correction 1" folder.
If your score is higher on the correction exam than on the regular
exam, then 30 percent (0.30) of this positive difference will be added
to your exam score. If your score on the correction exam is lower, or
you don't touch the correction exam at all (since it is optional), then
you just keep your original exam score and you don't lose any points.
My advice: solve the correction perfectly to maximize your score gain
even if you think you did well on the exam. You will be able to monitor
your correction score as you solve the correction exam by clicking on
the "Grades" link. The exam score will become visible only AFTER the
due date of the correction exam.

The maximum number of points achievable on a midterm exam is 50. The
weight of a midterm exam in your final grade is 12% in PHY 183B and 20%
in PHY 233B. The exam score and the correction score is combined together
as shown in the following example: If your exam score is 31, and your
correction score is 48, then your total score is 31+0.3*(48-31)=31+5.1=36.1
giving you a contribution of 12%*36.1/50=8.664% toward your grade in
PHY 183B and a contribution of 20%*36.1/50 = 14.44% in PHY 233B. If
your correction score is between 0 and 31 inclusive (in this example),
then you don't gain anything, but you don't lose anything either. You
will just keep your 31 points without any change.

The correction exam will open up on June 11th, Tuesday late night at
around 10 PM, and it will be due on June 17th, Monday, at 11:59 PM.
The next homework set will be due on June 20th, Thursday, at 11:59 PM.

Thank you very much for reading this message and saving it!

Tibor Nagy (nagytibo@msu.edu, web.pa.msu.edu/people/nagy_t/)