Adam Morton's Course - A Suggested Grading Formula

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GRADING FORMULA:  I will give all grades as letters, and then give them numerical equivalents as follows:

Fail = 0
D = 2
C = 3
B = 4
A = 5.

The grade for the course will then be the letter equivalent of (2W + 4T + 4P)/10 , where W is the grade for the weekly questions, T is the average grade for the tests, and P is the grade for the term paper. ("Letter equivalent" means the letter corresponding to the nearest integer above the weighted average. So 4.6 gets an A, and 3.3 gets a B.) 

Note that it is very easy to get an A on the weekly assignments. You just have to hand them all in. But if you miss more than a few, your mark for this component declines rapidly.

The final exam will be a way for people who have done badly on the tests and term paper to improve their grade. This will work as follows. There will be several sections, of increasing difficulty. If you have missed one test you do the first section. If you have missed two tests you do two sections, and so on. If you have missed weekly questions then you do the second section. The last section of the exam will have very similar questions to the term paper topics. If you have not finished your term paper by the deadline then you must tackle the last section of the exam. The effect is that you can use the final exam as a way of making up for missed work, but except for making up a single missed test, it is a harder way to get the grades than taking the tests or doing the assignments.

NOTE : there is no way to get out of filling out the paper-planning form and attending the paper-planning interview. These are required parts of the course, and you fail if you don't do them. The last part of the final exam is meant to substitute for papers that you have planned and begun but not finished on time.