Minor typo on key to F12 final

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It has come to my attention that there’s a typo in the key for the final for Fall 2012. In the very last problem, the answer key refers to the verb have but it should be referring to the verb be (since there is actually no have in that sentence).

Relevant also to that problem is the assumption that adverbs can adjoin not just to TP and to vP but also to the phrases headed by auxiliary verbs (PerfP, ProgP, PassP). As an example, Pat will quietly be solving the problem. That sentence doesn’t sound fantastic to me, but it doesn’t sound ungrammatical.

Finalward

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For some reason, the mass mailing part of the Link is down right now, so I’ll post this here and then maybe send out an email version of it later.

First thing: Homework

I have heard from a few people that the homework grades are now visible on the Learn site. And mostly the people I’ve heard from have done some math and then panicked. So, let me try to ease your mind a bit. There are 8 possible homework scores, and the lowest of them is dropped. They are each being considered as a simple percentage, and then the homework percentage is figured by averaging the percentages of the 7 highest-scoring homeworks. I have added a “HWA” column as well, which has the average percentage I have in my spreadsheet for you.

There are still a couple of people whose homework assignments I have but which have not yet been graded. Those are appearing as zeros right now, but they should turn into proper numbers once I’ve graded them, and that should be soon. It might be worth taking a look at your homework scores and comparing them to what you see on your graded homework as well, just in case there’s a transcription error somewhere.

As for what I consider the averages to mean: I think I gave this out at the midterm as well, but perhaps I didn’t. The homework percentages are pretty generous, though. 90% A, 83% A−, 76% B+, 69% B, 62% B−, 55% C+, 48% C, 41% C−, and so forth. Basically bands of 7% with a little extra room at the top. The midterm is scored the same way, and I expect the final will be as well. The final grade is determined by the contribution of discrete grade points scaled as was announced at the beginning, 40% for homework, 25% for the midterm, 25% for the final, 10% for participation (which in this case mostly means being there).

I have a spreadsheet that has done most of this math already, if you want to ask me about it, but this should give you the ability to do the math yourself as well.

Second thing: Extra credit homework

If your homework score is not what you’d like it to be, or if you’d like to do this just for studying purposes, there is an extra credit homework you can do, linked from the schedule and from here: Trees are easy to draw.

Since the final is early in the finals period, I’m allowing this extra credit homework to come in a little later, but it’s really better to do it before the final. Whatever you get on this homework can be used to boost the second two lowest homework scores (the lowest having already been dropped), so this is a relatively easy way to improve your homework score if you feel like you need to. You can hand it in partially complete if you wish, I’ll give you credit for what you’ve done of it. It looks very long, but it isn’t really that bad, and it’s kind of an interesting problem to work through.

Midterm update

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I’ve got the midterms graded and scanned and the key ready, but I’ll send them out a bit later in the day. You should get yours in email before all that long.

Looking at the homework and the schedule, I have decided not to give out a homework. With the schedule so broken up and having gotten only as far as we did, it makes much more sense to give out the next homework next Thursday. So, a week off from homework. I have updated the course schedule to reflect that.

Midterm keys

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Hmm. Looking at the practice midterm keys, some of them seem like they’re not without errors. In particular, some of the descriptive red text seems to have gotten carried over from Fall 2011, to Fall 2012, to Spring 2013, without having been updated to reflect the new sentences in the different tests. The answers to the problems themselves appear to be correct, but don’t trust the little prose explanations, particularly if they refer to something like “chairs with arms” in a sentence that doesn’t talk at all about chairs or arms. Too late really for me to do anything about it now, I guess, sorry for not catching that before posting them.

Homework 0

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Here’s the first “homework”, just a couple of demographic questions for you. You can email your answers to me. If I did it right, you can click here to start your email with the questions already there. But the questions are:

What other Linguistics courses (or related courses) have you taken?

What are your (actual or planned) major/minors?

What languages (other than English) do you know, and how well?

What language(s) did you grow up speaking?

Do you prefer to be called something other than what I see in the class list?1

Anything else that seems relevant?

1Within reason, that is. “Your Excellence” is not a valid answer here.