Math 408 Final Exam Information
NOTE: THE EXAM WILL BE IN ROOM 103 MUMFORD HALL

General information

Official final exam room assignments for all University classes can be found under this link.

Office Hours/Open House: I plan to continue the Open House style office hours during the final week on the usual days (Wednesday, and Thursday, 5 pm, 141 Altgeld (or an adjacent room)).

Conflict policy. There is no scheduled conflict exam for this class. If you are in a "3 finals in 24 hours" conflict situation, you are entitled to a conflict/make-up final, but the University has strict regulations as to which of the three classes has to provide this conflict/make-up final. (See the Final Exam Section of the Student Code for the official regulations.) If one of the three classes has an officially scheduled conflict exam (Math 408, like most smaller classes, doesn't), you have to take that conflict exam. If none has a scheduled conflict exam, the class with the largest number of students has to give you a make-up exam. If our class (Math 408) is the largest of the three classes involved, let me know by the end of Monday, April 28, with details on the other classes.

Rules: The rules are essentially the same as for the midterm tests and the actuarial exams. Books/notes/tables are not allowed. A normal table will be distributed (the same as the one used in the midterm exams. For a few problems you will need a basic calculator of the type approved for actuarial exams. However, the majority of problems require no calculator, and using a calculator for those problems would be a waste of time; some problems may explicitly prohibit the use of a calculator.

Missed final, illness, and other emergencies: By University policy, a missed final exam automatically translates into a failing grade unless the student has been granted an "excused/incomplete" grade by the Dean, in which case the student is entitled to take a make-up final by the middle of the following semester. If you miss the final because of an illness or other emergency do the following as soon as possible (preferably before the time of the final):

• Call the Emergency Dean (333-0050) and explain your situation. This is the most important step. The Emergency Dean can initiate further action or refer you to the appropriate Dean to get the excused/incomplete grade approval process started. (Only Deans have the authority to grant excused/incomplete grades - the instructor cannot assign such grades.)
• If you are sick, make sure to see a doctor or nurse as you will likely need some documentation proving that you really have been sick.
• Notify me by phone (244-7721) or email (ajh@uiuc.edu). (This is just a matter of courtesy so that I know what is going on. You still need to go through the Dean to get an excused grade and make-up final approved.)

Grading

The Final counts 30% towards your course grade. The grade will be computed from your grades on the homework, quizzes, midterm test, and final exam, as follows (see the Course Information Sheet for details):

• 15% Homework
• 15% Quizzes
• 40% Midterm Exams
• 30% Final Exam

Course grade. Your course grade will be the letter grade (with pluses and minuses) shown at the end of the score display, once the final scores have been entered. See the Interpretation of Scores Display page for a detailed explanation of the online score display.

Curving. All grades shown on the score display are curved grades. The current (pre-final) cutoffs for for A-/B-/C-/D- are set at 85/72/56/40. (Cutoffs for other +/- grades are determined by the program by linear interpolation.) Once the final scores are in, I may modify the current curve to adjust for the distribution of scores on the final, but it will likely be not very different from the curve in effect now, and in any case will be more generous than a 90/80/70/60 curve; i.e., there will be no "curving down". (Note that the only curving done is the "global" curving of the overall average, as described above. There is no additional curving of the individual scores.)

Grade appeals. The computer grade, as shown at the end of the score display, is your final grade and is non-negotiable. With a class of this size, going strictly by performance on written exams and assignments is the only fair and equitable way to assign grades; I cannot make adjustments for such things as having a perfect attendance record, or discount an exam because the student had a bad day on the day of the exam, or allow someone to improve a score by doing additional work. Everyone is subject to the same rules, and taking subjective factors into account in individual cases would be highly unfair to the rest of the class. Also, being close to the next higher grade is no reason to get bumped up to that grade. After all, if you were similarly close to the next lower grade, I wouldn't bump you down to the lower grade. In fact, since a letter grade with plusses and minuses corresponds to a 3 or 4 point range on a percentage scale, most of the grades are probably within one or two percentage points of the next higher or next lower grade.

Exam content

Exam 1 Syllabus

Exam 2 Syllabus

Post-Exam 2 Material

• Sums of independent normal r.v.'s (Section 5.3). See the bottom part of the Central Limit Theorem handout. Note that Section 5.3 in the book also covers other topics (e.g., the chi-square distribution), which you don't need to know. The relevant problems are 5.3:10-15.
• Combinatorial techniques (Section 1.3). See the Combinatorial Probabilities handout and the Combinatorial Problems handout. The final exam problems on this material will be comparable in difficulty to the majority of those on the Combinatorial Problems handout and to the examples and problems from Section 1.3 referenced on this handout.

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