The Block Exam and Semester Grades

Quick Index to this Web Page

Background Structure and Rules for Exams The Writing the Final Exam

Frequently Asked Questions End of Semester Policies Sample of Old Exams

Background:

The purpose of the block exam is to make the grades we assign mean the same thing across all the sections of a course. The best point of view may be that we are team teaching hundreds of students, and we want to grade all of these students on a fair and consistent basis.

Structure and Rules for the Administration of the Exam and for Grading:

All students will take the same exam at the same time.

Students may use an approved calculator and one sheet of notes during the exam. The sheet of notes may be typed, but the notes must be created by the student using the notes. (This is unenforceable, of course, but most students seem to comply.) Both sides of the paper may be used.

We do not make available any old exams. (Why? See FAQ.)

We will grade the exams as a team, so that each problem is grades the same way on all exam papers.

After the grading is done, all teaches will send the raw scores to the Supervisor of First-year Instruction (SFI).

The SFI will, with the advice of other experienced teachers, publish a grading scale to be used to interpret student's scores on the eams.

The semester grades that you turn in for your class must correlate closely with your class's grade distribution on the final exam. This does not mean, for example, that the number of B's you submit must be exactly the same as the number of B's that your students make on the final, but the number should be very close. It also does not mean that if a person gets a particular letter grade on the exam on the exam, that person must also get the same letter grade for the semester. Within the B and C ranges, —'s should be used about as often as +'s, and A+'s should be rare.

No student may be given a semester grade which is more than one full letter grade above that student's grade on her or his performance on the individual portion of the course. This rule is in place to give teacher's a means of handling the students who manage not to work hard and to ride others' coattails on group work. In very rare cases the SFI may grant an exception based upon a teacher's appeal.

The SFI will also designate a "mandatory F" score, which will be based upon students' scores on the final exam. Any student who scores below the mandatory F on the final exam must receive an “F” for the course, unless, upon appeal from the teacher on behalf of the student, an exception is granted by the SFI or the DUS.

If there are any questions or problems about complying with the rules above, they should be discussed with the SFI before grades are submitted.

Teacher's may not regrade exams without permission from the SFI. Thus, if there is a question about a paper being graded accurately, the teacher should take the exam paper back to the exam grader who graded that page to determine if there is a mistake. Under no circumstances may teachers change a grader's judgement in grading the final exams.

Writing the final exam:

The method of writing the final exam is not set in stone, and over the years we have tried many different procedures, including the following:

All teachers have met as a committee of the whole to write the exam.

A subset of teachers have drafted an exam to be reviewed by all teachers.

A senior faculty member, who is not teaching the course, has written the exam, which was not seen by the teachers until exam time.

Different teachers were assigned different parts of the exam to write.

With every method we have used, there have been advantages and disadvantages. The biggest problem with most of the above has been the perception among teachers or students that an exam might accidentally (or otherwise) favor one class or another. Thus, our current procedure is the following:

A teacher who is very familiar with the course, but who is not currently teaching the course, writes the final exam. A couple of days before the exam is to be given, all teachers review the exam for typing, accuracy, wording, etc; however, in their review, teachers are not allowed to add or remove problems. All responses from teachers during this review are treated as suggestions to the Exam Writer, who may or may not take the suggestions and make changes.

Some old exams:

These exams must not be shown to students. They are provided here solely for teachers' use.

End of Semester Policies.
(or, what information should teachers give students before the exam?)

There are three primary reasons for the policies below:: 1. We don't want to compromise the integrity of the block exam.; 2. We don't want to mislead students about the nature of the exam.; 3. We don't want teachers to get into a competition about who can provide the most office hours or who can create the most elaborate review sheet.

Please adhere to the following restrictions at the end of the semester.

Do not hold comprehensive review sessions.
Do not distribute comprehensive review sheets or "practice" exams.
Do not tell students what topics will be on the exam.
Do not tell students they're not responsible for some topic, unless the SFI has sent a note to all teachers to make such an announcement about a specific topic.
Do not hold any mandatory class meetings outside of the scheduled class time (ever).

You may do the following:

You can hold optional group office hours in which students ask the questions. For example, if a student wants you to work a max/min problem, then the student must pick the problem.
If you have not seen the exam, then you may make statements like the following:
"I don't know what will be on the exam, but I'd be surprised if there is no max/min problem."
"The final exams are usually about 10 pages long, and the total number of points will be approximately 200."

Frequently Asked Questions:

Questions start here.: "I don't know what will be on the exam, but I'd be surprised if there is no max/min problem."; "The final exams are usually about 10 pages long, and the total number of points will be approximately 200."

Quick Index to this Web Page
Background	Structure and Rules for Exams	The Writing the Final Exam
Frequently Asked Questions	End of Semester Policies	Sample of Old Exams