Calculating Your Grade
Go to the Homework Service for all of your scores. You will get to drop three homework scores in that average. You will also drop your lowest exam score for that average. Add on any curves shown below for those exams and the final. Also remember to add on those special points that were available.

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 - These are the FINAL curves!
Please use the following add-on percentage points for each of your exams to get the "official gradebook" score (the HWService does NOT do this). DO 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
+3 +2 ZERO +6 +6
Your Overall SCORE for the Course
Homework
(average best 11 of 14)		 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

87.00

B

77.00

C

67.00

D

58.00

F

< 57.00
Finalized (meaning this is IT) as of 5/15/06. Must EQUAL or CLEAR the number given. I do NOT round your scores to whole numbers - I use 4 significant figures - that's 2 places AFTER the decimal.
Note 1: practice01 and 02 are counted as homeworks which is why the total count is 14. You get to drop 3 out of that 14 total leaving you with 11 scores to average for homework.
Note 2:Remember to add on your special points (special01, special02, lastdayquiz01) to your exam scores before you average them.
Note 3: The 50% Final goes with the 45% exam, the 30% Final goes with the 65% exam. I will calculate your grade based on which scenario gives you the highest score possible.
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.