Dear Class,
Congratulations on completing the clinical epidemiology course!! I want to thank our outstanding TA's and faculty for their hard work helping teach the course and grading the exams and all of you for your high level of interest and participation.
Your exam will be in your mailbox in Mission Hall if you have one; if not you can pick it up from Olivia. Your overall score and grade are at the top of the exam. The answer key is on the course website, and of course if you missed the final examination discussion on the last day of class it is not too late to watch the recording!
I personally checked the exams of nine people who missed getting a higher grade by < 2 points and in one case was able to find another point or two to improve the grade. In others, the additional points I found were not enough to change the grade or there were points that I thought had been awarded too generously. I left those scores intact. If you see some scoring with little TN initials on your exam, those scores reflect my personal attention. I didn't bother officially changing scores unless it would lead to a higher grade.
For those interested in how they did on the exam compared with other students and how we computed the grades, see below. If you can't see the histograms in this e-mail, you can read the attached Word document attached to this post.
First, here is the distribution of scores on the final exam (for the 57 students who turned it in). The average was a few points lower that usual this year.
. sum exam, detail
Exam
-------------------------------------------------------------
Percentiles Smallest
1% 46 46
5% 57.25 48
10% 64.25 57.25 Obs 58
25% 75.5 61.5 Sum of Wgt. 58
50% 87 Mean 82.56034
Largest Std. Dev. 12.33757
75% 90.5 98
90% 95 99.5 Variance 152.2156
95% 99.5 100 Skewness -.9980123
99% 102.5 102.5 Kurtosis 3.75116
. histogram exam, bin(50) ti ("Epi 204 Final Exam, 2015") saving(Exam2015, replace) ///
xlab(40(10)100) freq
The overall grade is based on the average of homework and the exam. To get your homework total I dropped your lowest homework score, then averaged the percent correct for the 9 remaining homework assignments, counting the "write your own homework/exam question" as 1 assignment, with scores of 90%, 100% or 110%.
Here is the distribution of overall scores:
. . sum total, detail
total
-------------------------------------------------------------
Percentiles Smallest
1% 42.45181 42.45181
5% 67.83679 53.75061
10% 75.23317 67.83679 Obs 58
25% 82.15302 68.01842 Sum of Wgt. 58
50% 89.29288 Mean 86.64934
Largest Std. Dev. 10.5159
75% 93.0143 97.26627
90% 96.94504 98.04865 Variance 110.5842
95% 98.04865 99.61877 Skewness -1.952241
99% 100.124 100.124 Kurtosis 8.012251
histogram total if total, bin(50) ti ("Epi 204 Overall Score, 2015") freq xlab ///
(40(10)100) saving(Total2015,replace)
Scores were similar this year to past years, but the distribution had more low outliers and a higher SD. As in the past, I set the cutoff for an "A" just below the median.
|
Year |
Mean |
Median |
SD |
|
2010 |
85.64 |
87.55 |
7.15 |
|
2011 |
89.16 |
90.5 |
5.98 |
|
2012 |
88.04 |
89.76 |
9.94 |
|
2013 |
88.93 |
91.09 |
9.76 |
|
2014 |
86.59 |
87.68 |
7.22 |
|
2015 |
86.65 |
89.29 |
10.5 |
If you took the course for a letter grade, those with overall scores 59-68.9 got a D, 69-78.9 got a C, 79-88.9 got a B and 89+ got an A. If you are not taking it for a letter grade, it's the grade you would have received. I have posted your overall score on the CLE, but as of this writing the GRADE indicated on the CLE might be wrong. Use your score and the guide above to find out your grade.
I hope you enjoyed the course! We enjoyed teaching it. Don’t forget to fill out the course evaluation!
Happy Holidays!
Tom for the Epi 204 2015 team