Final grading summary
DS 401: Fall 2021

This document contains information about

  1. How to compute your letter grade
  2. Statistics on overall grade for the whole class
  3. Copy of final exam, with solutions & grading notes

1. How your letter grade was computed

Here is a recap of the grading distribution as stated in the syllabus:

      Quizzes & Classwork = 30%
      R labs = 15%
      Homework = 15%
      Midterm exam = 20%
      Final exam = 20%

Your complete grades for all the assessed items are currently on Moodle. The category weights on Moodle are also current, and reflect the grading distribution shown above. The "Course total" percentage shown in Moodle is your final overall average grade, including the attendance bonus. Your overall grade includes all the assessed items in the course. We had 9 items in the Quizzes & Classwork category; 7 items in the Homework category; 4 R labs; 1 Midterm exam; and the final exam. Two lowest grades were dropped from the Quizzes & Classwork category. In addition, a 2% bonus proportional to your attendance was added to compute your overall grade.

Here is how to calculate your overall grade:

(Add top 7 Quizzes & Classwork)\(\times \frac{30}{35}\) + (Add all 7 homeworks)\(\times \frac{15}{140}\) + (Add 4 R labs) \(\times \frac{15}{40} \) + (Midterm exam) \(\times \frac{20}{38}\) + (Final exam)\(\times \frac{20}{60}\) + (Total attendance bonus)\(\times \frac{2}{28}\)

This number is your overall grade (on 100%).

[If you want to understand this formula, for each category the numerator is the percentage weight, and denominator is total possible points. Recall: we counted 7 Quizzes & Classwork worth 5 points each (7\(\times\)5=35); 7 homeworks worth 20 points each (7\(\times\)20=140); 4 R labs worth 10 points (4\(\times\)10=40); etc. So, if you made full credit on every item in the course, including the attendance bonus, your overall grade would be exactly 102%.]

2. Statistics on overall grade for the whole class

NOTE: The size of this class was 11 students, which is way too small to meaningfully interpret any class statistics. But they are here for your reference anyway.

The following summary statistics are based on the final overall grade of all students in the class:

  • Median=88.5%, IQR=4.7%, mean=86.7%, SD=7.8%
Actual letter grades were assigned based on the following boundaries (written in standard open/closed interval notation):

        A+ = [95, 100];   A = [91, 95);   A- = [88, 91)
        B+ = [84, 88);   B = [80, 84);   B- = [77, 80)
        C+ = [73, 77);   C = [69, 73);   C- = [66, 69)
        D+ = [62, 66);   D = [58, 62);   D- = [55, 58)

For example, a student whose overall grade is 87.97% would make a grade of B+.   I do not round up (or down) -- for example, 87.97% doesn't become 88%, it stays 87.97%.

Distribution of letter grades

Grade # of students Relative freq (%)
A+, A, A- 6 54.5
B+, B, B- 4 36.4
C+, C, C- 1 9.1
D, F 0 0

3. Copy of final exam, with solutions & grading notes

It is available here