Office Hours

Monday: 8:30 – 9:30

Wednesday: 10:00 – 11:00

Friday: 12:00 – 1:00

and by appointment

2. Understand the mechanics, rationale, and appropriateness of statistical techniques.

5. Understand and use the language of statistics; interpret statistical results and communicate them in both technical and non-technical language.

7. Appreciate the role of computers in statistics and use them to facilitate problem solving.

A. All grades will be numerical, out of a total of 200. The total will be converted at the end of the term into letter grades (A, B, C, ...) based on gaps in the final distribution as well as a comparison with previous sections that took the same course.

C. Four 40-minute quizzes will receive 27 points each. For each student, only the best 3 of the 4 quizzes will count, for a total of 81 points.

D. There will be two final exams. Each one will be 85 minutes long and will receive 33 points. For each student, the highest of the two scores will be doubled to 66 points. Thus, the two final exams combined will account for 99 points.

E. The final grade breakdown will be provided after the final exam. Keep the quizzes and the exam for any claim. Time will be provided for students to check their final grade before submission to the CBA.

In previous classes, grade breakdowns were allocated on the basis of gaps that were found in the following ranges:

There is no reason to believe that the location of these gaps will differ substantially in this class.

Example: if your total grade is 153 out of 200, your final grade will most likely be a B, assuming that there will be a gap will be somewhere around 165. In some rare instances, a student will be in a borderline situation or in the middle of a gap. In this case and only in cases like these, I will reserve the right to either raise this student's grade to the next higher grade or drop it to the next lower grade. My decision will depend on a number of factors, among them:

· my knowledge of the effort made by this student in the class (by the way, visiting me during my office hours may be a good way for you to keep me informed of your efforts);

· whether the student's grades have been improving or deteriorating over the term;

The implications of this grading system for the student can be summarized as follows:

B. This is not the "curve" grading method. Even though I will be giving you some statistics about each quiz after I grade it, such as the lowest and highest grade and the average, these are just for your general information. The average has no impact on the final grade you will get in this course: if the average is higher than usual, there will be many high grades, and vice versa.

C. You are not competing against the rest of the students in the class for a few good grades. That is, all students can get As in a particularly bright class, or none can get As in another not-so-bright class.

D. You do not have to worry about hiding the information you have from your fellow student, since his/her grade will not have an impact on yours. Quite to the contrary, you are encouraged to form study groups to help each other so that more of you will get good grades.

Quiz and exam dates are in the schedule. Because quizzes differ from section to another, you must take the quiz with the section in which you are registered. Quizzes will be promptly returned and solved in class.

All quizzes and exams will be closed-book and closed-notes. Formulas and tables will be provided at the back of the test booklet. No additional make-up quizzes will be allowed and no other opportunity for extra credit will be provided. The two final exams will be cumulative.

The use of calculators is allowed during quizzes and exams, but not the use of computers and palm PCs.

Class starts exactly on time. Late arrival will likely affect class participation score.

Attendance is required both in the classroom and in the lab. Any student who is absent for 3 or more unauthorized days will not be eligible to pass this course. Absence is strongly discouraged, does exempt from doing the homework on time, does not exempt from answering the questions on the previous material in class, and will likely affect class participation score.

Also, it is only fair not to expect me to repeat the lecture, in private, to a student who was absent. If you were absent during a lecture, copy the notes from another colleague (do not count on copying my notes, they are a mess), then study the material and solve the exercises as best as you can. Then you are welcome to meet with me to ask me particular – not general– questions. I will not hesitate to spend as much time with you as you need, if I feel that you have made the effort to understand and do your homework.

You will have homework just about every class throughout the semester. The list of homework exercises will e-mailed to you. However, answers to these exercises are not to be handed in (with the exception of exercise 12). I will call you by name to ask you about the answer to these exercises. In order to allow for the coverage of the necessary material, I will solve in class only those exercises that you will ask me to. That is why you are encouraged to visit me during my office hours before class to iron out the difficulties you are having with the homework. The use of MS Excel is required to solve many homework exercises.

The answers to the homework exercises will be asked at the beginning of class. Your answers will determine a large part of the 20-point class participation score. If you have the right answer you will get one full class participation score. If you have done the homework but have the wrong answer you will get a partial score. If you have not done the homework or are absent you will get a score of zero. Therefore, being absent, attending a section other than the one you are registered in, or coming to class after your name has been called will negatively impact your class participation score.

In this class, students will be rather heavily involved in participation: I will occasionally call you by name to ask you to go to the board to solve a homework exercise, or to ask you a question about the previous material that you should know by now.

Also, sometimes, I will make deliberate mistakes. I hope you will quickly realize that I do not make these mistakes because I do not know the material. Rather, I make these mistakes where many of you tend to make them. But do not worry: I will not leave you in limbo: I will hope that one of you will correct me; if not, I will immediately point out to your attention that I made a mistake and that this is a frequent misconception. My hope is that you will take note of this mistake in order to avoid making it.

You major reference is your notes: you are responsible for all the material that I cover in class, but you are not responsible for any material in your textbook that I do not cover in class. There is no better way to know what you are responsible for than to take good notes. I will do my best to give you enough time to do that in class.

The textbook is the next best reference, especially for areas which are too concisely explained in your notes, and on which you need additional detail or information.

Unlike what you may think, questions during class do not and should not bother any half-decent instructor. To me, a student who asks questions is one who is interested to learn and is likely to perform well. In addition, you pay tuition to learn, and I get paid to teach you. Thus, it is my duty to explain the material to you and it is your right to understand it. All this leads to one conclusion: do not hesitate to ask questions when you need to. In fact, I do not like a quiet class; the atmosphere is too intimidating. I prefer a class where everybody is noisy, where students interrupt me frequently, especially to tell jokes, in which case I promise I will reciprocate.

Every student in the class will be part of a study group of size 2 or 3. Study groups will be made up by me, but your suggestions will be taken into consideration. If you would like to be with a friend or friends in the same study group, let me know before the day of the first quiz. I will finalize the study groups before the first quiz. If you have a preference in terms of a partner for your study group, let me know asap. The purpose of the study groups is for the students to help each other out. To this end, the top 4 study groups in terms of the total scores on the 4 quizzes will receive 3 bonus class participation points at the end of the semester. There is nothing that prevents several study groups to merge for study, but the count of the total quiz scores will be based on the official assignment of study group membership.

You are encouraged to visit me during my office hours to clarify any material or homework exercise that you don't understand, to check whether the answers to the exercises are correct, and even to get clues about how to solve the exercises you are having difficulty with.