Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 11:12:00 -0500 (CDT) From: "Stephen A. Fulling" To: math151540-2008a@groups.tamu.edu cc: "Stephen A. Fulling" , Hannah Saugier Subject: Final exam room; common exam 3 results Our final exam will be in BLOCKER 110 on Friday, May 2, at 10:00 a.m. (until noon). Remember that the final exam is weighted more heavily than the others. It will (probably) be structured very much like the 3rd common exam, but possibly with a smaller percentage of multiple-choice questions. It covers ALL the material of the course; naturally, Chapter 6 will receive a slightly increased emphasis since it barely made it into the common exam. Grades on the last common exam are posted in Vista. I want to comment on the problematical question #5: "The graph of g(x) is concave up on the interval(s) ... (b) (-5,-3) and (2,3) ... (e) (-5,3) and (0.4,3) " The (maximal) intervals on which the graph (of g, not g'!) is concave up are (-5,-3) and (0.4,3). That is what response (e) was intended to be. Unfortunately, (1) there was a typo in (e), as you see; (2) technically, (b) is a correct response, since the graph certainly is concave up on those two intervals. So even without the typo, the question was bad, because it had two right answers. However, most students and instructors interpret such a question as a demand for the PRECISE domain of upward concavity, so that (e) (with the missing minus sign inserted) was the intended answer. In the end, students got credit for either (e) or (b). (Nobody in our class chose (b), as it happened.) Most of you chose (e) and got the full 4 points, although in some cases what you wrote on the test paper did not convince me that you really understood the problem. Congratulations to Kosie Okafor for pointing out the error to me during the test, and for the best written analysis of the situation! -- Stephen A. Fulling Professor of Mathematics and Physics Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77843-3368 USA