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8.01 Review Quiz 1 Results, Fall 1997

Based solely on the content of each question and the partial credit that we would expect a passing student to earn, we estimated the passing level for this exam at 54. This estimate, however, did not take into account the time pressure. Allowing for the time factor, we have set the passing grade for this quiz at 44. In more detail, the numerical grade that you received can be translated into a letter grade by the following chart:

"Fifth Week Flags" for freshmen are to be sent out this week (week of October 6). They will be based solely on this Review Quiz, so freshmen who had grades of 43 or below will receive one of these warnings. If you are in this group, please take the warning seriously. Talk to your 8.01 class instructor and your advisor, to try to figure out a way to study for this course more effectively. See also the message about tutoring that just appeared on the 8.01 web page. On the other hand, remember that it is only an early warning, so there is no need to panic. Even if you got a zero on this exam, you can still pass this course! (I should mention that while all students who achieve a numerically passing average grade can count on passing the course, not all students who receive a numerically failing average grade will fail. Each such student will be discussed individually at the final grade meeting of the class instructors and me, and some students who are near the borderline will be passed. The most common reason is the demonstration of significant improvement during the term, even if it was not enough to numerically compensate for some bad grades at the beginning of the term.)

A histogram of the grades for the quiz is shown below. Note that vertical bars have been offset by half a point, so that each bar indicates the number of students who received the grades that are directly below the bar. The first bar indicates grades of 95-100 (6 possibilities), while every other bar indicates a bin of 5 possibilities: 90-94, 85-89, 80-84, etc.

Regrade Policy and Deadline:

While we try to grade carefully, mistakes can never be completely avoided. If you have questions about the grading of your exam, you should bring them to your class instructor. In order to make sure that regrade requests are handled while the instructors can still recall how the grading was done, we are setting a deadline for regrade requests. Normally the deadline for Review Quiz regrade requests will be 13 days after the quiz, at the end of the day on Thursday. In this case, however, since the announcement was not made until Monday, October 5, the deadline will be the end of the day on Thursday, October 16.

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