Paul Mikulski
Associate Professor, Physics
mikulski@usna.edu
410-293-6669
CH255
http://usna.edu/Users/physics/mikulski/
https://usnaemail.usna.edu
http://usna.edu/mids
http://usna.edu
http://usna.edu/PhysicsDepartment

Spring Semester 2012:

Just for Mikulski's sections: practice exam1 with solutions (for exam at 5weeks).

Information and Resources that apply to all SP212 sections:


Schedule, Pacing:
Below is a link to a sample MWF schedule. Pacing can vary from section to section, however the schedule is generally useful in that the content of the final exam will reflect the pacing in this schedule (you can weight lab material with regard to pacing on the final as a lecture, thus 40 lectures and 10 labs for a total of 50 meetings).
sp212_spring2012_schedule.htm

There are 10 labs scheduled for the semester. Below is a link to the lab manual for those that are using the published online labs. Many instructors prefer a somewhat less structured "by the blow" approach to lab and so you may or may not make direct use of the online lab manual though you will be exploring the same physics,
SP212 Lab Manual

The Final Exam Will Include an Equation Sheet:
Most of the material covered in SP211 was concerned with laying down a basic foundation. When physics or things related to physics are discussed or utilized, much of what we learned in sp211 would be assumed to be part of your working vocabulary (verbally and technically). Consequently, no formula sheet was provided with the sp211 final exam. Many programmed their calculators, but to be honest, this misses the point.

A strong argument can be made that the sp212 final exam could be approached in the same way for the same reason. On the other hand, the material is a good deal more abstract and, for many, the various formulas that are involved do not feel as comfortable as the those related to classical mechanics. To help relieve the anxiety associated with this, a standard issue equation sheet will be provided with the final exam,

sp212_spring2012_eqsheet_20120104.pdf NOT FINALIZED!

This equation sheet is currently NOT finalized; there may be corrections or slight modifications, but you can use this formula sheet as a reference and expect no signficant changes overall to this equation sheet. We strongly suggest that you DO NOT view this equation sheet as simply a list of equations where you just need to find the one to which you need to plug in the numbers. The depth of understanding needed to make sense of the physics in SP212 (and all of physics for that matter) goes way beyond this. So do practice using the equation sheet as a handy reference, and make sure you remind yourself of the subtleties that often come into play when you make use of any of these equations. The equation sheet is no golden ticket, just a potentially mildly helpful tool.

Getting going with WileyPlus:
NOTE: If you did not register with WileyPlus last semester (you only need register once for WileyPlus), you will be prompted for your registration code that came with your book purchase. If you misplaced that original code, take a few minutes to make sure you don't have it lying around somewhere; if it doesn't turn up, send an email to mikulski@usna.edu requesting a new code.

Preparing for the Final Exam:
The final exam counts as 30% of your final grade. The exam will consist of 50 multiple choice questions. Here are two old final exams to help you prepare. The final is not created with any direct reference to these, nonetheless they may be useful. Do take note that the sp212 schedule (see the link above) shows 40 lectures topics and 10 labs for a total of 50 meetings focused on specific material. With 50 questions on the final, you can expect questions to be uniformly spread across lecture and lab material approximately in accord with the suggested pacing in the schedule. The schedule also gives suggested problems for each lecture

sp212_final_2005.pdf
sp212_final_2006.pdf

It will be very important that you reflect on the concepts that relate to all the problems you have solved through the semester. The exam will contain a mixture of calculational and conceptual problems. Be attentive to developing an understanding of problems as opposed to simply getting problems done. If you do this in conjunction with thoughtfully investing in lab (make sure you leave each lab with the main take-away points clearly in your mind!), you will be prepared for the the final.

Course Policy Statement for Mikulski's sections:

SP212.5521, MWF5 CH239, T56 CH006
SP212.6541, MWF6 CH239, R56 CH006

Grading:
Homework via WileyPlus:
All WileyPlus assignments are open are ready to go. There are no due dates. When I'm ready to churn the numbers ("the morning of" when grades are due for intermediate marking periods, and the day after the final) I'll take a look at the recorded points earned. Problems are the suggested problems that appear in the schedule. Assignments are organized by chapter for easy navigation. You have infinite guesses and while the numbers are randomized for each student, any individual student's numbers don't change. WileyPlus is purely for PRACTICE not for assessment. As a tool, when you can't get a problem, it serves as a springboard for discussions with me.

Notice that points earned in WileyPlus are simply extra credit. They help everyone no matter what their average in exactly the same way. If you have an 80% exam average and you do 40% of the WileyPlus problems, your (before the final average) gets bumped to 82%. The mark of 200 is for the end of the course; for earlier marking periods we'll set an appropriate "out of". WileyPlus is no golden ticket, just a useful tool. I can always work with students on whatever problems regardless of whether you ever enter answers into WileyPlus or not, that is not an issue. If you want to maximize your average anyway you can, then you'll need to see things completed in WileyPlus.

DO NOT take completing points in WileyPlus to mean that you are doing what is expected and that this represents meeting course objectives. There are plenty of ways to score points which do not translate to any kind of understanding that you will carry beyond the time spent doing the problems. To point just one thing out as an example, if you go through let's say five incorrect guesses before you get the problem right on the sixth guess, and you do not take the time to review the pitfalls that led to each of the incorrect guesses, ?????. Part of becoming a critical thinker is developing tools for self assessment that allow you to know you understand the material solidly. I can certainly help you with possible approaches if you find your time on task does not feel as productive as you would like, but at the end of the day, when things do start working in the right direction, you will know this is the case without me telling you.

Subjective Aspect to Computing your (exam average):
The material in sp212 for many is difficult. Some may not experience success initially despite consistent efforts. In time, most that work consistently will improve. My concern is that you leave the course with understanding that you carry forward. A straight up average doesn't necessarily capture this in a very meaningful way. To help with this, I will compute your (exam average) two different ways:
  1. As a straight up average of your exams.
  2. A cascaded average that will come out the same or higher.
What I'm calling cascading is basically the replacing of older lower exam scores with improved exam scores. This is OK with me largely because ALL EXAMS ARE CUMULATIVE (meaning on material starting from the beginning of the semester). Granted, as exams progress, I can't exhaustively cover as much over any segment of the course, but it is still pretty straight forward to assess where you are in your understanding. In code form here is how cascading works,

#######################
# STRAIGHT-UP AVERAGE
#######################
default_average = 0;
for (i = 1; i <= N; i++){
  default_average += exam[i];
}
default_average /= N;

#######################
# CASCADED AVERAGE
#######################
for (i = N; i >= 2; i--){
   if (exam[i] > exam[i - 1]){
      exam[i - i] = exam[i];
   }
}
cascaded_average = 0;
for (i = 1; i <= N; i++){
  cascaded_average += exam[i];
}
cascaded_average /= N;

The effect is that continued improvement will continue to help even the earliest of exams throughout. If you do worse on a later exam, it has no effect on the better earlier exams.

The default_average and the cascaded_average form a window (unless you get progressively worse with each exam in which case the cascaded_average will come out the same as the default_average). I will assign an (exam average) anywhere in this window based on my subjective evaluation of the consistency and quality of your efforts.

In the most extreme case of someone who doesn't wish to be bothered with WileyPlus or establishing any kind of rapport with me that would allow me to have a sense of how you are applying yourself outside of class, no problem, I can just go straight off your default_average. Provided you are doing OK, I have no problem with this. On the other extreme, if I know you are working hard, consistently, and in a quality fashion (as opposed to "face time" EI for instance), then once your hard work pays off and your exam scores improve, cascading is a HUGE help.

It is important to understand that the subjective element is evaluated fresh at each marking period. If you ditch the last month of class after working hard for the first 3 months, I will revert back to the default_average. I can tell you that I am a generous professor with regard to wanting always to put the best possible spin with regard to how I view your efforts, but it is sometimes the case that a few students don't give me a way to do this!

Lab does not get graded formally, we are there to deepen our understanding, to gain some experience different from solving formal problems. I'd like the lab environment to be focused but relaxed. Helping to make this the case can certainly help favorably with regard to where you fall in the window bounded by your default_average and your cascaded_average.

Exams:
Your exam average will be based on five in-class exams. The first four are given during the open lab periods (not including the first week's open lab). Due to scheduling this means you will sometimes have exams in back-to-back weeks. Oh well, that is the way it worked out. Exams are cumulative (cover all material since the beginning of the semester) so really they can happen anytime. The last exam will fall on the last day of class. All exams will be designed around one period though for the open lab exams you can take the extra period if you like. Your game will really need to be on for the last exam though, that is during class and I won't be able to let students go over by more than a minute or two.