Exam and Quiz Policies
Exam Policies
Students who (a) arrange to miss an Exam for a verifiable and valid reason or (b) unavoidably miss an Exam for a verifiable and valid reason may take it before the end of the next business day without penalty. Students who miss an Exam will take a comprehensive exam (covering the whole course) during Finals Week to make it up. Valid reasons are defined below.
Missed Exam policies: Valid reasons:
Unavoidable things can happen that might make it impossible for you to take an exam at the scheduled time, but late exam restrictions are necessary to maintain fairness to other students and to minimize the amount of time spent preparing special make-up exams.
- If you get approval from me before ahead of time and if the reason is unavoidable and verifiable, you may take the regular exam one business day late.
- Acceptable reasons for missing a test include official college activities, the presence of H1N1 flu symptoms (including fever that ended less than 24 hours before the exam), or other documented serious illness, accident, or a death in your immediate social network.
- If you cannot take the exam within one day of the scheduled exam (due to a continuation of the problem that led to the delay in the first place), make-up exams will be given during Finals Week.
- If you miss the final exam for an acceptable reason, contact me as soon as possible to arrange to take the make-up exam or, if you cannot do that within the grading period, to apply to receive a grade of Incomplete (see the Incomplete policies above).
- There is no grading penalty for late or make-up exams for valid and verifiable reasons.
Missed exam policies: Reasons that are not valid:
Unacceptable reasons for missed exams include leaving early for vacations or weekends, car breakdowns away from campus over the weekend (have a back-up plan for returning to campus before you go!), forgetting the test, poor time management, having one other exam on the same day, scheduling doctor or other appointments at that time, work schedules, or not being ready for the test.
- All make-up exams when the test was missed for a reason that is not considered valid and verifiable will be scheduled during Finals Week; to compensate for your extra study time, your grade on the make-up exam will be reduced by 10%.
- If you miss the final exam for an unacceptable reason, you will not have an opportunity to take it later; an F grade will be recorded for the exam.
Missed Exam policies: Other reasons:
If you miss an exam for some reason not described above, I will carefully listen to your reasons. Because dates for Exams are available from the first day of class, only serious, unavoidable and unforeseeable circumstances are likely to be considered acceptable reasons for missing a test.
Early Exams.
Early tests are not usually possible, including final exams. The reason is that to be fair to all my students, I would have to make this option available to everyone in the class, which is not practical. A secondary reason is that the exams are usually not ready until the day of the exam, anyway.
Quiz Policies
No make-up quizzes will be given except in extreme and unusual circumstances. Students can miss up to 3 of the daily quizzes without penalty, to allow for situations where absence in unavoidable due to illness or other valid reasons.
H1N1 Flu and other infectious illnesses
The outbreak of H1N1 flu seems largely to be over. However, a number of other infectious diseases often strike during Spring Semester. It is your responsibility to work with fellow students to get handouts and notes on days that you miss class.
- Arrange to have a “flu buddy” who will pick up handouts or notes for your class. It’s probably best not to have your roommate as a flu buddy.
- If you develop fever or other flu symptoms, stay home from class. I do appreciate your e-mails telling me that you are sick, but it will be your flu buddy who brings you materials from the course.
- If your illness becomes severe, DO seek medical care, and continue to stay in contact.
- Due dates will be shifted, on an individual basis, to take the problems of serious illness into account.
Professor illness: In the event that I become ill with the flu or other serious illness, I will arrange for one of the designated videos for this course to be shown by another faculty member or a teaching assistant.
