Course Intro & First Homework

Welcome to PH102! At the bottom of this page, you will find our course calendar, which you should review carefully. We will stick to our schedule rigidly, as our time is quite short over the summer semester.

You may also want to look over the course syllabus and other information, which you can find here. The slides I'll present in lecture today are here, which also includes all of the important syllabus-type information.

Finally, your first homework set is already due next Monday, 14 July 2008. Have a look.

See you at 10am ...

Multiple choice portion of final

I have preliminary grades for the MC section ... I will have to go back and double check everything this weekend, but to give you an idea of how it went:


The plot above is the distribution of scores. No one aced it, the closest was missing only 1 of 18. Congrats to Mr. Mgbemena.


The plot above is the percentage of you answering each question correctly. Obviously, questions 2 and 14 just sucked. As did 18, a little bit. Otherwise, not bad. Those three questions basically account for the relatively low average.

The average on the MC part was 71.6%, with a standard deviation of 14.3%. There will probably be a slight curve, amounting to about 5 points.

FYI, the multiple choice and problems sections will be curved separately (if necessary) - if the average on the problems ends up very low, it will be scaled more. The separately scaled scores will then be added together for the final grade.

You can start inquiring about grades on Monday, I will be done grading exams by then.

Final solutions

Or, at least the multiple choice section. Re-read the homework and quiz solutions, and you will find many of the solutions to the problems section.

Exam II solutions

Here you go, for the last-minute cramming.

Homework 12 solutions

Here they are, almost complete. Only the one about the ring of charge is not yet complete, but I assure you that particular problem will not show up on the final exam.

For more last-minute fun, here's a draft of the formula sheets I'll be including on the final. This is not final, has not been proofread, etc., but gives you an idea of what to expect.

Also: relax. If you've been going to class and following the homework/quiz solutions, you have nothing to worry about. Most important will be to keep your cool and use your time wisely on the final - don't get stuck on any one question for too long, and don't panic.

Correlation between homework and pre-final grades

This isn't particularly shocking, but there is a 87% correlation between your homework average grade and your up-to-the-minute overall grade.

There is not a lot of hidden meaning here: if you did your homework, and did it well, you scored well on everything else by and large. We can say with (much) better than 99.95% confidence that your homework score is a good predictor of your total grade. This establishes correlation but not causation, though in this case I would hazard a guess that doing your homework in fact causes you to do well on everything else.

My current theory is that the final exam scores will follow this plot as well, supposing that it is a bit late to catch up on everything at this point. I am hoping, though, that you prove me wrong!

Final exam format

FRIDAY 9 May, 8am-10:30am
329 Gallalee

As we discussed today, the final exam will consist of two parts:

Part I: Multiple choice. Worth 50% of the exam grade, approximately 20 questions. Roughly half will be conceptual, roughly half involving simple calculations. Solve them all.

Part II: Problems. Worth 50% of the exam grade, you will solve a certain number of problems in each of 7 sections, for a total of 11 problems. You must solve the indicated number of problems in each section.

• Electric forces, fields, and energy: solve 2 of 5.
• Current, resistance, and dc circuits: solve 2 of 4.
• Magnetism & induction: solve 2 of 4.
• ac Circuits & EM waves: solve 1 of 3.
• Optics: solve 2 of 4.
• Relativity: solve 1 of 3.
• "Modern" Physics: solve 1 of 3.

You are allowed two full sheets of standard 8.5x11" paper, front and back, with formulas and so forth. I will provide most formulas and all numerical constants (masses, etc.) on the exam. Beyond your formula sheets, you are allowed only writing implements and a calculator.

The final is worth 20% of your total grade.

Post any questions you might have here, so I can easily answer them for everyone.