Exam scores are up.

I got the exam scores back yesterday morning (section 0002) and late last night (section 0001). They are now UP.

Comments:

1. Morning section 0001, your scantron score went straight into Webcourses, no need to modify.
2. Afternoon section 0002, due to the CPS getting fried, I converted your scantron score (out of 77) to an 80 point equivalent. The formula I used is below:

Last thing to do before computing grades: The Chuck Norris Factor, on SMA and HW.

Brain-burners

This is the list of the toughest brain-burners on the final exam, in no particular order.

1. "Which way will the compass needle point?" ←was the toughest of all.
   
2. Two balloons attracting each other: might be oppositely charged; might be one charged, one uncharged.
   
3. Baseball trajectories and hang time
   
4. "Suzy vs. Harry" with friction
   
5. "Sliding coin" -- stopping time, stopping distance
   
6. "loop-the-loop"
   

These questions were real bearcats to think out and answer correctly.

I will be posting scores in a few minutes.

Genius section

The afternoon section 0002 is the genius section for the semester. Even though they are fewer than the morning section, the "after lunch bunch" has consistently more top scores on midterms and higher averages on midterms. This is also true on the final exam. Chuck Norris would be proud of the afternoon section.

I am analyzing all the exam scores and so forth, and I hope to have them posted up by tomorrow morning, if not sooner.

Radio silence

I will be making last minute details on the final exam for you morning section 0001 students, so I expect to be in the proverbial "radio silence" this morning. This means I will probably not be responding to course mail and discussion postings until after the test.

Final exam for section 0001

Final exam today
for morning section 0001
10:00 AM, sharp.

No show me the money yet.

Section 0002, no data back from test scoring yet. When I dropped off the exams last night at 4:05 PM, they told me they would not be working this weekend, either -- some semesters they DO work overtime. So no data will be forthcoming until next week, maybe not til Wednesday if they are as slow as they have been during the semester. One of the reasons I hate scantrons.

Now I will catch some ZZZZZ.

Final exam today for afternoon section

Final exam today for afternoon section 0002
1:00 PM, sharp.
Large CPS section, so bring your clicker.

Force on current carrying copper bar

This video will be available soon.

What direction is the horseshoe magnet's magnetic field in this demonstration. The camera is sharp enough that you can figure it out after close inspection. Good camera work, Michelle P.!



Large nice versions are already up on iTunes U.

Take semester analytical summary test

The university has a summary analytical test for everybody to take. It's fifteen minutes, over in the "GEP PSC1121 09Fall" area of Webcourses.

The exam is short and will be available until Dec. 14th. Please take it before your final exam.

Bonus: Design a question for Final Exam.

You can contribute questions for the final exam, using the Discussions area, "BONUS Design a question for Final Exam."

Usual procedure: create a question on your own, indicate the correct answer with * an asterisk, and type in the study area for the concept: page and chapter, plus date of lecture if applicable. If I select your question for the final exam, it will earn you 2 bonus points.

Faraday cage 2

Here is the Faraday cage video from afternoon section, complete with front row guidance from John H.



And the big nice versions, in .m4v format, are in our iTunes U in the "Demonstrations" tab and in the "Demonstrations-mobile" tab.

Remember: we will feature Faraday cage questions on the final exam, so give this demonstration and the earlier video a good look.

By the way, in each of the Faraday cage videos, we discuss the graphite in the pencil. Here are some links to Webelements.com, for carbon and, for comparison, copper. Look at the resistivity of each substance. It is the intrinsic measure of a substance that gives you an idea how well it conducts electricity: low resistivity, good conductor.

1. Carbon spec sheet.
2. Copper spec sheet.

Gloria's S.I. review sheet is up.

Students, go to the Gloria Scott zone on the home page, and there you shall find that PDF of Gloria's S.I. review sheet.

Sweet wave in Hawaii

Excellent.

Exam guides and office hours

If you go to the Arnold icon on the course home page, you will find the exam guides for Exam 3. For each item on your test form, A, B, C or D, there is a short blurb or description to let you know precisely what your incorrect exam questions were about.

So look at your exam printouts. Then check the exam guide for that exam form. That will let you know semi-precisely what to study before the final.

I will try to do exam 2 and exam 1 files, also.

I have all your exam printouts handy in my office, room 412 of Math and Physics Building. Drop in any time today to pick them up.

Whoops! Room change for S.I. review Tuesday night

Gloria's S.I. review session has been switched to Room 218 ABCD in the Student Union. The date and time will be the same: Tuesday, Dec. 8th from 6:00-8:00 PM.

Chuck Norris mega-combo review

The Chuck Norris mega-combo review homework assignment is now UP. It is a big one, and you have until noon, Friday, to finish it up. Use it as a study tool. There are a few brain burners in there. Nice.

SSG signups will open at 8 PM tonight.

At 8 PM tonight, Sunday night, SSG signups will be visible and activated for the first group. Look for the blue SSG icon, then click through and find yourself an SSG session that fits your schedule. If the blue icon is not visible, you are not in the first group.

I will open up the SSGs for the rest of the two sections at 5 PM, Monday afternoon.

iTunes U bonus point

I just uploaded the iTunes U bonus point for 13 more students. That brings us up to Nov. 4th.

By Tuesday, I hope to have one more gigantic spreadsheet (20,000 lines) of data to analyze and extract the very last few students' names for the iTunes U bonus point. If you drop in for office hours, most likely I will be working on that big spreadsheet!

The number of students subscribed to the visual podcast as of Nov. 4th is 194, not as many as we needed for our Friday plan, but still pretty good.

Grading ins and outs

In the next week or so, I will be messing around with the gradebook frequently. So do not panic is all the HW points disappear for an hour or other weirdness. It is just me working in the gradebook. :)

Prelim

I have activated the "Total semester points" line in your My Grades page. Right now it contains CPS pointage and best two midterms. After Monday, I will also add the HW pointage out of 16. After your final, I will get the final exam points and bonus points in there, too.

You can use the "Total semester points" figure to estimate your current grade going into the final exam:

1. Before Monday evening: divide your "Total semester points" by 104, and then look up the percentage value on the table below. If I gave a semester grade based on CPS and best two midterms, this is what it would be.
2. After I add in the last HW27 points on Monday evening, do the same thing, but divide by 120. This would be your semester grade if I were to give it based upon CPS, HW and best two midterms.

Your bonus points, which are not all in yet, will boost that.

Here is the semester grade scale again:

Preliminary letter grade	Percentage
A	0.90 or higher
B	0.75
C	0.60
D	0.50
F	less than 0.50

NOTE: the semester grade is based on points. See syllabus.

CPS complete

I just uploaded your regular CPS pointage into Webcourses. These are the 24 points (or less) that you earned for your semester grade through answering CPS questions in lecture. Not everybody got all 24, but a ton of you did pretty well. These points are in the "CPS pointage" in your My Grades page.

Also, in the "CPS correct bonus" line, you will see whether you received the 4 bonus points for answering 75% of the CPS questions correctly. Not everybody got these 4 bonus points, but a decent fraction of you did.

Both of these CPS data are in accord with the syllabus.

Monday we will have the Chuck Norris mega-combo review in SMA, so bring your CPS clicker!

Homework 27 has a mighty, mighty brain burner.

The last regular homework assignment of the semester is now up, Homework 27. As always, it is due on Monday at the normal times. It contains a real brain burner that, if you can understand the correct answer, you will have put together concepts from August and December. Good.

Start discussion threads on the brain burner, and we can sort it out.

More HW coming, the mega-combo review. Maybe later tonight -- I have to catch some zzzzz right now.

Office hours etc.

Next week:

1. Sunday: first group signs up for SSG, starting Sunday evening.
2. Monday lecture:
   1. The quantum of light, demonstration;
   2. Mega-combo review in SMA.
3. Tuesday:
   1. Dr. B office hours all day, drop-in when you have some time.
   2. Gloria's S.I., 6 PM, Student Union. (See her announcement blurb below.)
   3. First SSG sessions.
4. Wednesday: More SSG sessions
5. Thursday: Last SSG sessions
6. Friday: final exam for afternoon section 0002, starting at 1:00 PM, sharp.
7. Saturday: ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

And then morning section 0001, your guys' final exam is on Monday, Dec. 14, starting at 10 AM.

Centripetal force video prep for final exam

Sweet video of a real car taking a loop-the-loop.



We will make use of this excellent dynamical procedure on the final exam.

Homework 26 has two brain burners plus...

You can go start working on Homework 26 now. It is due at the normal time, tomorrow, Dec. 4.

It has some review that will help us tackle diffraction effects and atomic spectra tomorrow in lecture. Plus there are two brain burners to challenge your grey matter.

Homework 26 and podcast

Today's lecture is up in iTunes U.

Also, Homework 26 will be ready for you to work on by lunchtime tomorrow.

Gloria's S.I. review, before the final

Here are the specs for Gloria Scott's S.I. review next week, before the final exam:

1. Tuesday, December 8
2. 6:00 - 8:00 PM
3. Student Union 316 A, B, C, D

Good.

And even if you can only make 20 minutes of this session, it will be helpful!

Final exam schedule for all classes

Public Service Announcement:

Here is the schedule for final exam week, for all classes.

University of Central Florida Exam Schedule

Make sure that you know all of your exam times, and if there is a conflict with your PSC1121 final exam, let me know. It happens occasionally. We will coordinate with the other instructor.

WARNING: if this is your first semester at UCF, read that schedule carefully!! It is set up weirdly, in my opinion. My first semester at UCF, I got caught napping b/c I read the schedule incorrectly. What a disaster.

By the way, we stick to our exam schedule by necessity, so do not ask me to take it early or late. Your section has one and only one time for its final exam, as printed out on the syllabus from Day One.

Monday's lecture is UP.

You can view and listen to the Monday lecture on iTunes U now. I had to "borrow" a few horseshoe magnet images from other universities, but otherwise it is the regular Keynote slides and the doc cam PDF.

iTunes U survey

I recently got a request from the university that you all complete a questionnaire about your experiences with UCF on iTunes U. Only by hearing from every single student can UCF continue to improve the effectiveness of UCF on iTunes U.

As a reminder, I cannot see your questionnaire responses, and this UCF on iTunes U questionnaire is in no way related to the online Student Perception of Instruction you've also been asked to complete.

As a reminder, you may access the questionnaire at the following URL until Monday, December 7 at 11:59pm.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dGpuUWRBX09lN014eEszYjBsSVNiTGc6MA

If you have any questions about the questionnaire or any problems completing it, please send a message to idev@mail.ucf.edu for assistance.

P.S. Just so you know, the university knows the difficulty we have had getting your NID from the usage logs. I also got a faculty survey! :)

Homework 25 is ready to go.

Your homework is ready to tackle, due on Wednesday. You might also want to double check the doc cam PDF of morning class, which I will upload now.

CPS points only for afternoon section

The L40 CPS data are only for the afternoon section. You guys in the morning section did not quite have time for CPS, but the afternoon genius section did have time.

So I posted up points for the afternoon section.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, I will have one more question for the morning section. E.g., if my CPS lesson is 10 questions for afternoon, the morning section will be 11 questions. That will even everybody out, even though the L40 rows look lonely and forgotten for you all in morning section.

By the way, I always upload zeros to EVERYONE'S CPS rows in the gradebook. I do this so that Webcourses will compute the CPS running subtotals properly. Webcourses acts weird if it has a blank space with which to compute, so

1. my first move is always to pave each CPS line in the grade book with zeros,
2. then replace the zeros with actual CPS answered and CPS correct scores for everybody who clicked.