Dear students in PHY 232 section 002,

This is a reminder that we have our first midterm exam this Wednesday,
February 3rd online in LON-CAPA.

You are going to take Exam #1 online. Between 8:00 PM and 10:00 PM
eastern time on February 3rd you will have a 2 hour long time window
to take the exam. The exam is one hour long. Start the exam no later
than 9:00 PM to utilize the whole hour. 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 area of the LON-CAPA window.

Before you start the exam, you need to do the following: find a quiet
room where you will be alone for the duration of the exam. Eliminate
all possible distractions: no TV, no background music, no cell phones.
If you are going to use a laptop, plug it in to an AC outlet, don't run
it on battery. If you have a choice between wired and wireless network,
go with the wired network: it will provide a higher speed and a more
reliable connection than wireless. Avoid wireless keyboards and mice.
Make sure your handheld calculator has fresh batteries and it works.
Have several pens, pencils, erasers and scrap paper ready. You are
allowed to use ONE double-sided help sheet on the first exam. Close all
applications on your computer to maximize your computer's power and to
minimize your distraction. Start a fresh browser session with only one
single tab: no youtube, no ebay, no google, no amazon, no facebook,
no email.

The exam is online and it is not proctored. Your proper behavior is
expected and appreciated. You are a grown-up now, please, behave
accordingly. Non scholae sed vitae discimus.

When you are ready to start, you click on the exam folder. LON-CAPA will
say that 'The resources in "Exam #1" folder are open for a limited time.'.
You click on the "Show resource" button, and LON-CAPA will show you the
first question of the exam. The timer starts to count down from 60 minutes
to zero on the top right area of the window. You can also use a wrist watch,
a wall clock, a kitchen timer or the clock on the taskbar of your computer.

You can use the green LON-CAPA arrows to move forward and backward between
the questions of the exam. When the timer goes down to zero, the contents
of the exam folder will become hidden. If you wish to finish your exam
early, you can click on the "Done" button in the upper right area of the
LON-CAPA window. LON-CAPA will ask for your confirmation. At this point you
can still return to your exam, if you change your mind, or you can confirm
that you are done. You log out of LON-CAPA. You can close your browser, you
are done! You did it, you can relax now!!!

When you take an exam online in LON-CAPA, the questions are going to be
in the so called "exam mode" instead of the "homework mode". You are
familiar only with the homework mode of the questions so far. In the exam
mode LON-CAPA will give you multiple choices just like on a traditional
paper exam. Numerical questions will have eight choices, conceptual
questions will usually have less. If a unit is expected, it will be
displayed for you, you will not have to worry about that in exam mode.
Once you pick your answer, you will need to click on the "Submit" button,
just like in homework mode. In exam mode however LON-CAPA will not give
you immediate correct or incorrect feedback in green or red color. Instead
it will just simply say "Answer submitted..." in yellow color. Most of the
questions will have 12 tries, but some of the simple conceptual questions
will only have 2 or 3 tries. You are allowed to change your answer and
resubmit it, but please, don't use up your tries too quickly. All your
submissions are recorded for each question, but only the last submissions
are graded. A large "Stop!" sign will indicate the end of the exam. You
can go forward and backward between the cover page and the end of the
exam using the green LON-CAPA forward and backward buttons. The cover
page will have some important physical constants on it.

If you lose your internet connection, or your computer is misbehaving, or
you have any other technical problems, just don't panic. Try to reboot
and to reconnect to the internet and log back to LON-CAPA and you will
be able to get back to your exam.

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 they are not necessary. You are
allowed to have ONE single-sided hand-written 8.5 by 11 inch US letter
sized formula sheet.

The exam will be based on homework sets 1 and 2; and chapters 15 and 16
from the text book. The exam will have about 10 multiple choice questions,
some numerical some conceptual. Some of the questions will have more than
one part. You can score 50 points on a midterm exam. 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 homework sets.

A practice exam is now available at the www.pa.msu.edu/~nagy_t/ address.
Try to take the practice exam under realistic conditions: alone in a quiet
room in 60 minutes or less with a calculator and with your formula sheet.
When you are done, you will be able to grade yourself using the answer key.

After you finish the exam we will assign the exam again as a homework set.
It will be called Correction Exam. The Correction Exam will be 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. The best strategy is to solve the Correction Exam perfectly to
maximize your gain. The due date of the Correction Exam will be February 8th,
Monday, 11:59 PM. The score of the exam will be posted inside LON-CAPA under
the "Grades" link on Tuesday morning AFTER the due date of the correction.
No email message will be sent out to you with your exam score. The next
homework set will be due on February 10th, Wednesday night at 11:59 PM.

Thank you very much and good luck on Wednesday!

Keep calm and wash your hands.

Tibor Nagy
(nagy_t@pa.msu.edu, www.pa.msu.edu/~nagy_t/)