Exam I results

Well, the exams are graded. You will get them back tomorrow, and we will go over the solutions.

No scaling was necessary - the average was 84.6%, with a standard deviation of 12.2. Very well done, better than expected. Here is a histogram, of sorts:


Since the exam was multiple choice, 20 questions long, each question was worth 5 points. Thus, saying the thing above is a histogram is being a bit too fancy; it is really just a plot of how many people got each score. Basically: many of you rocked the exam, and clearly studied. A smaller number of you did not rock the exam.

Now, if you are on the low end of the distribution, keep in mind that each exam is only 15% of your grade. Your homework, quizzes, and labs are all worth 15% each at the end of the class ... so a lower than expected exam score can easily be made up by doing well on the homework.

Basically: don't panic. It is still early enough. Be diligent about labs and homework, and things have a way of working out.

Below is a breakdown of the average score by question. Clearly, #20 was not your favorite. I suspect the problem was partly confusion of metric prefixes, and partly forgetting to take a square root ...



Perhaps not surprisingly, the questions I worked out in class today were quite easy for all of you ... a little present for showing up to lecture on the day of the exam, I guess.

And, by the way: we will go over new material tomorrow ...