Strictly speaking, there is no curve, so you are not competing against your fellow students. I encourage you to study together and learn from each other! However, if grades don't turn out as I expect, then I'll consider whether an assignment was more difficult than I intended and adjust the grades accordingly (usually by making a hard problem extra credit).
Per SCC policy, you need 70% to get a C, which is the minimum grade necessary to qualify for a later course. (For some purposes, you may need a C+ or higher; talk to your advisor.) Here are the letter grades:
| A+: | at least 95%; |
| A: | at least 90% but less than 95%; |
| B+: | at least 85% but less than 90%; |
| B: | at least 80% but less than 85%; |
| C+: | at least 75% but less than 80%; |
| C: | at least 70% but less than 75%; |
| D: | at least 60% but less than 70%; |
| F: | less than 60%. |
There will be 17 quizzes (actually 16 because of the snow day), but your lowest two quiz scores will not count towards your grade. Each of the other 15 quizzes is worth 4% of your grade (actually 14 quizzes worth 4-2/7% each), so the quizzes total 60% of the grade in all. (I will drop only one quiz when calculating the midterm grade.) The midterm exam and the final exam will each be worth 20%. Nothing else contributes to your grade. There will be no extra-credit assignments, although there will be extra-credit problems on some of the assignments.
Sometimes you will be required to show some of your work; make sure that you read and follow the instructions! To get as much credit as possible, it's good to explain your answers as clearly as you can, even when the instructions don't specifically ask you to. If you can convince me that you know what you're doing, then you'll get some credit. But if it looks as if you pulled an answer out of thin air, then you won't get credit.
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