Grades and Study Tips
Course Grades
The five tests. Your final grade in the course is based on your performance on the five exams -- and your turning in your writing assignments. There is no final exam in the course. The computation of your final grade is based on the following:
Lowest of your five tests = 0%
Other 4 exams @22.5% each = 90%
Note that you MUST take and pass the 5th exam. Failure to pass the 5th exam means that it will count as one of the four exams that will be counted. This rule encourages students to take the final part of the course seriously.
Writing assignments. Five writing assignments are due over the course of the semester. You will be graded simply on whether or not you turn them in. Each writing assignment is worth 2% of your final grade, or, for all five writing assignments, 10%.
Experimental requirement. All students are required to participate in 5 hours of experiments or write one research paper at least 5 pages long. Information about the experimental requirement was handed out on the first day of class. If you do not have this form, refer to the following webpage:
http://www.psy.utexas.edu/psy/undergrad/courses/info/301experiment.html
Failure to complete the experimental requirement will result in your receiving an Incomplete in the class. The experimental requirement has no effect on your grade in the course.
Special circumstances, extra credit. There is no extra credit in this course. There is no way to improve your grade short of turning in your writing assignments and doing better on the next exam. Begging, pleading, crying, or bribing the teacher or TA will not affect your grade in any way. Really. Seriously. Truly. It has never worked in the past, it won't work now.
Study Tips
The tests in the course can be quite difficult. They are geared towards your understanding the basic concepts in the class. For the best grades in the class, we recommend the following study strategies:
1. Look at the old exams. Truly study them to see the kinds of questions that are typically asked.
2. After taking exams in this class, go back over them and analyze them in detail. What questions did you miss and why? Were they book questions or lecture questions? Did you miss the question because of the way you read it or did you not understand the concept? Were you able to narrow down the answers to one of two and you just happened to pick the wrong one? If so, why did you choose the one you did? No matter what the answers to these questions, you must look closely at the old exams to see where you went wrong so that you can correct it next time.
3. Go to the review sessions. These have been found to be very helpful for hundreds of students in the past. Also, take advantage of the outstanding teaching assistants for the course. Don’t hesitate to talk to them about questions you might have during their office hours.
4. In reading the textbook, read each chapter first as we cover it in class. When you read it, don't rely on highlighters. Don't just outline the chapter. THINK what is being said in each section of the book. Look at the section heading, read the section, and then ask yourself -- "What is the main point of this section?" You should know what all the highlighted terms mean. After you have learned the major points in each section, begin asking yourself questions like, "how does the highlighted term in this particular section relate to other sections of the book?" In other words, start trying to tie ideas together.
5. Attend all the lectures. Listen for the main points in class; don't worry about details. You must be an active listener to get the main ideas. Keep your mind working in class. Don't sit there passively writing down random phrases from the lecture. After class, go over the notes and think about the main ideas.
6. After reviewing your notes and readings, find someone else in the class and study with them. Ask each other random questions about the course material. For example, how is classical conditioning related to Kohlberg's theory of moral development? How is linguistic synchrony related to retinal disparity? You may not know the answers (nor may we), but you will be seeing how various concepts work together.
7. Starting several days before the exam,
re-read your notes from class and the book. Again, you should be able to
identify the major points in the various sections of the book. Also look over
the questions from the website of the book and in the book itself. That web address is:
http://www.wwnorton.com/college/psych/psychsci2/index.asp
8. Feel free to talk with the TAs or the instructors about the tests. We will tell you about points 1 through 7. But if you have specific questions about the reading, lectures, or old test questions, talk to us.