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 only a D; 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 65% but less than 70%; |
| D: | at least 60% but less than 65%; |
| F: | less than 60%. |
There will be 15 homework assignments, each of which is worth about 4% of your grade, so that the homework totals 60% of the grade in all. The exams will each be worth 20%. Nothing else contributes to your grade. However, there may be extra-credit assignments, and there will be extra-credit problems on some of the regular 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. I also suggest that you cross out (and not erase) any significant amount of work that you decide is incorrect, in case you later want to look at it after all.
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