@Wicked: Generally?
You know what you got in the rest of the course.
Your professors will hand you sheets at the start of the course telling you what all the different components of your grade (assignments, papers, midterms, labs, and the final) are worth.
So, you figure out what you have on a percentage scale based on the work you have already received grades for - then you look at what the final exam is worth, and the required percentage of your final grade to go from where you are to the desired grade (whether that's a B or an A or just a pass).
Take the percentage points from where your grade is at present to the minimum end of the percentage range of the desired grade.
Divide that number by the total percentage of your overall grade that your final exam is worth.
The resulting number is the grade you need on your final to get the desired overall grade you were looking for.
"Lock up your girlfriends, lock up your wives, Grim's on the loose so run for your lives." - PyriteIn particular, I'm often calculating just how much I can slack off in course X where I've been ahead of the curve, buying myself time to catch up in course Y where I'm behind.
Last year I straight-up failed one of my final exams and still pulled an A in the course, because I did the math and realized I could get away with it and then focused my studying elsewhere.
edited 14th Aug '12 11:30:58 PM by EdwardsGrizzly
<><I did that for a statistics class. Got a middling B- on the midterm and then killed the final and still got an A.
Well, for example, last semester I had a calculus class that was graded on 3 areas:
- Successful demonstration of course skills (by working in-class problems): 50%
- Online Homework: 30%
- Final Exam: 20%
We also got a free 5% boost if we agree to tutor the students in Business Calculus.
Now there were 61 different skills we had to demonstrate. So skills grade would be [skills demonstrated]/61. Multiplying each part of the grade by the fraction of the total grade it makes up gives an equation for finding your grade. For calculus it looked like this:
Total grade = ([skills demonstrated]/61)*50% + [percentage of homework done]*30% + [final exam grade]*20% (+5% if you did the tutoring)
Towards the end of the semester I actually graphed that equation, to figure out how best to balance the final with the remaining homework. The graph told me, for example, that for a given skills grade if I got a 60% on the homework I would need a 90% on the final to get an A, and told me what the tradeoff between last-minute homework-doing and final exam cramming was. It also told me that if I only needed a B I could blow off the final altogether as long as I did most of the homework.
edited 15th Aug '12 12:47:35 PM by EdwardsGrizzly
<><![]()
My grade for my Quantum Physics class was based on, roughly, the following:
- 30% homework
- 40% midterms (two midterms, 20% each)
- 30% final exam
I got 75% on one midterm (15% of total grade), 70% on another (14% of total grade), and I averaged roughly 85-90% on homework, so ended up with around 26 of a possible 30% from my homework.
Thus, before my final, I was guaranteed a minimum grade of around 55%.
To get a B, I needed to have 75%. Thus, I needed at least 20 of the 30 percentage points on my final exam. So, I needed to get 20/30 = 0.666... (repeating), or 66.7% on my final, in order to get a B for my final grade.
That's what I meant.
"Lock up your girlfriends, lock up your wives, Grim's on the loose so run for your lives." - PyriteTaking all senior level ANTH courses this semester. Should be exciting.
@Zombie: I've only taken a first year Anth course. Was interesting. But a lot more reading than I'm accustomed to.
The joys of being a science major.
@Bat Pencil and Saturn: What is your guys' majors?
"Lock up your girlfriends, lock up your wives, Grim's on the loose so run for your lives." - Pyrite

I finished my last year with an unsettling urge of murder
Haw Haw Haw