Homework #8 is based on Lectures 22 through 24 and Chapters 12 & 13:
A few days ago there was a major meltdown of the
server hosting a lot of things, including
OWL and the grades. Good news - we
managed to recover gradebooks. Bad news - all the work that you had done on
Homework #8 was lost. I know that many of you have already completed the
assignment prior to the server meltdown. I'm also aware of the fact that most of
you hate
OWL. But we'll have to re-do that Homework again. Please, don't start
hitting the computer, the desk, or anything else around you yet, and hold a
little bit before shouting "Damn you, Dr. Shatruk,...." once again. It shouldn't
be as bad as it sounds. I'll try to make it less painful to you by making this
assignment partially optional. Read carefully all the information below - it
might be a bit confusing even though I've tried to make it clear. It wasn't easy
to put all this together.
1. There is no way for me to check if you had completed the assignment before
the server went down, and there is no way that you can prove that to me either.
2. I know that as the final approaches, many students try to get any additional
points possible to boost up their grades. Therefore, I feel that they should be
given a chance to get those points.
3. It sounds as if I'm punishing the students who did very well again, but it is
not true - keep reading and you'll see why.
4. Some of you might think that I just should give all of you 10 points but I
don't think that's fair since I know that more than half of the class haven't
even started on the assignment before the server meltdown.
5. I know that students who had already completed the homework are those who
usually study hard and who got high grades on other
OWL assignments.
6. Now, we come to the point. Homework #8 is optional in the sense that you
don't have to do it if you're happy with your average
OWL grade calculated from
the previous homework assignments. If you don't want to work on Homework #8, I
have no problem with that - your grade for this assignment will be equal to your
average grade on all other homeworks. If your average grade for Homeworks 1
through 7 is 10, you'll get 10 for Homework 8, if the average grade is 9, you'll
get 9, and so on.
7. If you do want to get additional points by doing better on this last homework
than you did on the previous assignments, then you'll have to complete Homework
#8 (as usual, only the problems with the "Required" status will be counted).
Then your grade for Homework #8 will be the actual grade that you will get after
completing this homework by the due date.
8. You don't have to tell me if you want to complete the homework or not. If you
want to, just go ahead and do it. I was just thinking that some of you use
OWL
problems to prepare for the test, so even if your grade is already high, you
still might be working on Homework 8 problems. After the deadline I will simply
look at the grades that you obtained for Homework #8. If your grade turns out to
be higher than the average from the previous homeworks, I'll keep that grade
unchanged. If your grade turns out to be lower than the average from the
previous assignments, I'll make the grade equal to the average (I will raise it
to your average grade). In this way, it won't matter what you decide to do with
this last homework - I think most of you should benefit from this in any way.
9. The deadline for this homework assignment has been set to 9 p.m. on Monday,
Dec. 12.
To sum up, I think that:
(1) students with high grades should feel better now since your hard work paid
off and you don't have to work on this assignment if you don't want to;
(2) students who want to improve their grade have the chance to do so by
completing this homework;
(3) students who don't care for their grade don't have to do anything.
In my opinion, that's fair. Your opinions might differ from mine, and that's
okay.
(Wow, this resembles some kind of a commercial).
Anyway, Homework #8 is accessible now. If you want to use OWL, it will accept
your username and password, but you'll have to re-enroll into my section.
I believe there was a couple of students who had Homework #7 extended. Please,
contact me asap so that I could re-set that homework for you. By the way, there
will be no extension for Homework #8 since all the grades will be pulled out the
morning after the deadline and then OWL will be completely erased and
re-installed.
If you use
OWL to prepare for the final, feel free to go to "Past Due
Assignments" and work on different kinds of problems - you can do that. Even
though the assignment is "Past Due", it simply means that the program will not
grade your work.
If anything sounds too confusing to you, feel free to e-mail me with
questions.
Required problems from
OWL:
Chapter 12 & 13 Homework Problems
Optional problems from
OWL:
Chapter 12 & 13 Exercise and Tutor
Problems
Optional problems from the textbook:
Chapter 12 - 5, 10, 14, 17, 19, 23, 24, 28, 30, 32, 35, 44,
46, 47, 49, 53, 55, 56, 64, 66, 70, 71
Chapter 13 - 22, 23, 26, 34, 35, 37, 41, 42