Calculating Your Grade
Go to the Homework Service for all of your scores. There are 13 total homework scores and you'll average the 11 highest ones for your average. There are 4 exam scores. Add the curves that are shown below to each of your exam scores. Also, if you have a score for special01 you can add the RAW points (2 max) to any one of your exams that you will keep. Now average your top 3 scores for your exam average. Add the TWO point curve to your final exam for that score. If your final exam score is higher than your exam average, then you can count the final exam as 50% of your grade and your exam average as 45%.

Once again, please note that the Homework Service DOES NOT calculate your final grade (score) - I do that via my own local files. I DO extract your SCORES (percentages and in some cases, RAW scores) from the Homework Service for each assignment though.

Exam Curves
The HW Service does not allow for any curves (add-on percent points). So use the following add-on percentage points for each of your exams to get the "official gradebook" score. Find your PERCENT score from the homework service, then add the following amounts to those scores and you'll have your official gradebook score.
Exam 1 Exam 2 Exam 3 Exam 4 Final
+4 ZERO ZERO +6 +2
Your Overall SCORE for the Course
Homework
(average best ? of ??)		 5 %
Exams
(average best 3 of 4)		 65%
or 45%
FINAL
yes, you HAVE to take it		 30%
or 50%

G R A D E    B R E A K S

A

87.50

B

77.50

C

67.50

D

57.50

F

< 57.50
I will calculate your grade both ways (65/30 or 45/50) and give you the higher of the 2 methods. You do NOT need to tell me which way to calculate your grade - I'll assume you want the higher grade.
YOUR FINAL LETTER GRADE
You now KNOW the curves so you can calculate your grade. You must make at least the cut-off score or higher to get the appropriate grade. Yes, some students will miss the cut-off by as little as a tenth of a point. Please read the following about being on the bubble.

On the Bubble - Borderline cases for letter grades
What is "on the bubble"? The bubble is when you have an overall score of 79.33 and the break for getting a "B" in the course is set at 79.50. It simply means that you have NOT met the criteria for a particular letter grade but are very very close - as in a few 1/10ths or even 1/100ths of a point. How do I decide such cases? Read on...
What's my method for determining bubble cases? First, I look at your score on the final exam. If you did much better on the final than other work AND it is considerably higher than the grade break you will receive the higher grade. Next, I look at what your score was on the dropped exam. If you completely bombed the dropped exam, you will most likely NOT get the higher grade. If your dropped exam is actually quite close to the average of the other 3 AND your overall score is only a few tenths (as in 2 or 3 tenths, not 2 or 3 whole percentage points) away, you'll probably get the higher grade. And third, I'll look at your homework scores. Did you do all of them? Are the scores in keeping with your exam averages? Did you do ALL the work for the course?

There you have some of the criteria for beating the bubble. The only SURE way to beat the bubble is to NEVER be on it to begin with. Stay on the high side of the grade breaks and you'll never have to worry about these details.