PHYS 486 :: Physics Illinois :: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Course Grading

Course grading will proceed in compliance with University policy as given in Article 3, Part 1 of the Student Code.

We use a holistic grading scale for all assignments/evaluations in the course, as follows:

100% for demonstrating full understanding of a problem (up to trivial mistakes)
80% for demonstrating good understanding, but with non-trivial mistakes
60% for demonstrating decent understanding, but with with significant gaps
40% for demonstrating a clear lacking in understanding and unproductive approaches to problem solving
20% for showing little to no understanding and no path to solution of a problem

Problem sets are posted on Tuesday before the end of the day.
Deadline for submitting solutions on Gradescope is the end of the following Tuesday (11:59:59pm).
Convert your homework into a good-quality and well-legible PDF and upload it there before the deadline (properly sorted by problem, please).
No late submissions. If you have an extraordinary workload in a week, please make use of the fact that we drop the 3 lowest homework grades; plan ahead! For very good reasons (like being ill for several days) we may consider an EX. Please consult with Prof. Pfaff.
Presentation matters -- your submission must convince the grader that your understood the material
Your solutions must contain all steps required to arrive at the solution. That is true, in particular, for any calculation. If your submission does not convince the grader that you know how to solve the problem, points will be deducted. Unless stated otherwise, you should know how to perform calculations by hand. Exceptions are plotting, or sanity-checking solutions you arrived at by hand.
Working in groups is strongly encouraged, but you must submit your own work. Submitting copied work is plagiarism.
Grades and solutions are available one week after submission deadline.
Note: we do have homework due in midterm weeks. Those sets will, however, not contain new material and focus on review of midterm-relevant materials.

You will be able to view your grades on all components of the course using the course Gradebook.

Your final grade will be based upon the course components as follows:

Course Component	Number of Assignments	Percentage
Discussion sessions (Graded for participation. 2 lowest are dropped.)	11	15%
Homework (3 lowest will be dropped)	13	25%
Midterm exams I and II	2	30%
Final Exam	1	30%
		100%