Grading for MATH 121, Spring 2009

Here's how I figure grades:

For each exam I compute percentage cutoffs for each letter grade. These are generally about the same, but vary if the test was too hard, too long, etc.

This semester, the cutoffs for Exam 1 were: A -92%, AB -87%, B -82%, BC -76%, C -70%, CD -62%, D -55%

For Exam 2: A -92%, AB -85%, B -78%, BC -71%, C -64%, CD -57%, D -50%

For the ten homework assignments, I compute percentage correct for each assignment. Then I average those percentages and get a letter grade for homework from the following scale:

92% - 100%	A
87% - 91%	AB
82% - 86%	B
76% - 81%	BC
70% - 75%	C
62% - 69%	CD
55% - 61%	D
0% - 54%	F

Then I take the four letter grades (Homework, Exam 1, Exam 2, Final Exam) convert them to numbers on a 4.0 scale (A = 4.0, AB = 3.5, B = 3.0, ...). I combine them using the percentages from the syllabus:

HW * .5 + E1 * .15 + E2 * .15 + FE * .2

and then round to the nearest half-integer to get the letter grade.

-mike slattery, spring 2009