14.003/14.03  Microecon Theory & Public Pol

Grades Posted and Final Exam Stats

Announced on 03 January 2013  3:55  p.m. by Melanie Sharon Wasserman

Reminder of today's exam time and location

Just a reminder that today's final exam will be held from 1:30pm to 4:30pm in du Pont Gymnasium. That's building W32, at the corner of Mass Ave and Vassar St.

You will have a full three hours to complete the exam, though we do not anticipate that you will need this much time.

Best of luck -- and congratulations on completing the class and your semester!

- David Autor

Announced on 19 December 2012  11:05  a.m. by David H Autor

Exam #2 Info

Exam #2 has been graded and the grades will be posted by 8pm. The exams were very good overall. All students who took the exam passed with a C or higher.

Here is some information to help in interpreting your grade:

- The exam had 90 points
- The high score was 88 (two points deducted for acing it)
- The mean was 66.4
- The median was 69.5
- Grades below 50 points roughly fall into the C range
- Grades of 72 and above are roughly in the A range

See you in class tomorrow -- and have a great holiday AFTERWARD.

For class, please be sure to have a BRIEF look at the paper by Newman et al. on "Effects and Costs of Requiring Child- Restraint Systems for Young Children Traveling on Commercial Airplanes.”

Best wishes

- David, Maria and Melanie

PS: Unless you have urgent concerns about your grade, please ask us your grading questions after Thanksgiving.

Announced on 20 November 2012  7:15  p.m. by David H Autor

Exam #1 Info

The first exam has been scored and overall the grades were quite solid. The mean score was 58 out of 80 points, the median was 60 points, and the high score was 78 points (we took off 2 points from the high scorer as punishment for acing the exam. :-})

The distribution looked as follows:

90th percentile: 73
75th percentile: 70
50th percentile: 60
25th percentile: 48
15th percentile: 41

There is not a fixed distribution of grades for the class and, roughly speaking, most grades for this exam are in the A+ through B- range. If you received below 41 points on the exam, however, then you are in C or lower territory and you should think hard about how to improve your performance going forward. The TAs and I are happy to talk with you about how to do that.

Remember finally that if you have questions about grading, please follow the review procedure on the class homepage.

Best wishes,

- David

Announced on 11 October 2012  3:35  p.m. by David H Autor

Q's on Grading of Exams and P-Sets

Now that we're handing back p-sets and exams (next week),
some of you will have questions on how your work was scored. If you have
concerns, here's the procedure:

1. Drop off your exam or p-set to Melanie or Maria along with a note describing specifically what you believe the problem to be (no re-grading in real time). You must keep a copy of your note and the problem set/exam for your own safekeeping.

2. To ensure consistency, we will re-grade your entire p-set/exam, paying special attention to the question/issue that you were concerned about. (Despite our best efforts, we do make occasional grading errors in both directions.)

3. We will return your re-graded p-set/exam to you within a week. Likewise, you must submit any grading questions to us within one week of the time your assignment is originally handed back.

Many thanks, and have a good holiday weekend.

- David

Announced on 04 October 2012  9:15  a.m. by David H Autor