Both Homework Set 4 and Graphical Homework 4 have been linked to the course calendar. Note that HW Quiz 4 is next Friday. Yes, that is the last day before Thanksgiving Break. Of course, you get the entire following week off, so I will be hard-nosed with those of you who want to leave early for break. The number of out "Get Out of Jail Free" cards handed out will be very close to zero, if not zero on the nose.
The scores on Exam 3 have been uploaded. The class average was the highest of the semester, 30.4. One student scored a perfect 45.
A few students got out of the classroom without picking up the Analysis Paper 2 assignment. If you are one of them, be sure to pick it up Monday; it's due next Friday.
We're in the home stretch now. The final "quarter" of the course is only three weeks long, rather than four. Assignments come fast and furious. Be prepared!
I have (finally) posted the answer keys for HW Quiz 3. Sorry about the delay; I simply forgot to post them.
Reminder: A pre-exam review session will be held in CVA 147 from 5:00 till 6:00 tomorrow.
The average score on Homework Quiz 3 was 8.1, a tenth of a point higher than on HWQ2. Three students answered all 12 questions correctly, and a total of 58 students scored ten or better. On the down side, four students scored 3 points each, and 43 scored six or less. If I may be permitted an editorial comment, I think the rampant absenteeism I've seen all semester is producting its fruit. Those of you who come to class faithfully should not take umbrage at my comment. Some students work very hard and still don't have much success in economics. It's a peculiar subject.
We've now completed two thirds of the semester. GHW3 is due next week and Exam 3 will be behind us two weeks from today. How time flies when we're having fun. :-)
The answer keys to Exam 2 have been posted.
Homework Set 3 and Graphical Homework 3 have been posted. You can access them through the calendar or through the Homework link.
Exam 2 is in the books, and while the class average isn't great, it's better than on Exam 1 - and it covered tougher material. The class average was 28.6, and scores ranged from 5 (one person) to 43 (three persons). Also five students scored 42, another scored 41, and five more scored 40. Now that's more like it! Seventeen scores of 40 or above is pretty good.
Next week we will do a little work on the labor market, then move into macroeconomics proper. We're living in interesting times, so the macro section should be fun.
Remember: If you want to exit the course with a WX, today is the last day to do so. Go to the Registrar's Office in Moulton Hall. I'll expect to see the vast majority of you on Monday. Have a nice weekend.
The answer key to Homework Quiz 2 is posted under Answer Keys.
In addition to the usual Wednesday afternoon review session, I will be holding a 5:00 Thursday review session in CVA 147 this week.
Note that this is week 8. If you decide to drop the course, you must see me for a drop slip Friday afternoon.
Note that we have two assignments that are due in the near future. Graphical Homework 2 is due this Friday. For Collin, who must grade the GHW, and I, who must collect it, the amount of paper we must handle is large. It would be really helpful if you would staple your sheets together if you hand in two sheets of paper. Better yet, if you would print the graphs on both sides of a single sheet of paper, it would reduce the bulk by half. I am seriously considering subtracting a point from each GHW that isn't either stapled appropriately (close to the upper left corner) or printed double sided.
Following rather closely behind the GHW is Analysis Paper 1. Since it's due next Monday, I will answer questions about it at this Wednesday's review session. Please read the article before you come to the review session; you will get more out of the discussion than if you've not read it yet.
I have linked Homework Set 2 and Graphical Homework Set 2 to the Course Calendar. (For some reason beyond my ken, I cannot get them linked to the Homework page. I'll keep working on it.) HW Quiz 2 is next Friday, the 26th. GHW 2 is due in class on Friday, 3 October.
Update: I looked again at the questions and found that I did NOT make an error on my keys. However, I have already added a point to everyone's score, and it takes effort to change the scores again. So, enjoy your unearned point.
Good News! With the help of one of your classmates, I found an error in the answer keys. To correct for the error, I added one point to each of your Exam 1 scores, thereby making everyone who took Exam 1 a little better off. (Since you are not competing against one another, it matters not that a few people got an undeserved point.)
There will be a review session this afternoon, as usual.
Well ... Exam 1 didn't go so well. When the high score is only 40 out of 45 and the class average is in the high D range, either I've failed to convey the logic of economics very well, you have not done the work to understand the logic of economics, or some combination of the two. My guess is the last alternative. Some of you did poorly because you haven't been coming to class very regularly and you haven't bother to read the text. But others of you - many of you - have been very faithful in coming to class and reading the material and you still didn't do well. How do we respond to this?
First, keep coming to class and reading the text. Our first topic in Part II of the course takes us back to comparative advantage - only this time we'll be using a supply/demand model to discuss international trade. That should make it easier for many of you to understand the analysis. We then move on to the concept of elasticity of demand. It's a bit complicated, but we can do a bunch of practice exercises which will help you catch on. After elasticity, we move to cost of production. Again, we will do some practice exercises with numbers that should enable nearly everyone to develop an understanding of the logic of cost.
"But what about my grade?!!" To a large extent, that's what the optional final exam is for. It enables you to replace your lowest exam score with the final exam score. (If you score lower on the final, the low score is the one you drop.) Since the final exam has 50 questions, rather than 45, you have a good opportunity to add points to your total score. We will also have an analysis paper coming up soon. That's an assignment you can control. Write a good paper and you can add 15 or 16 points to your score, raising your average. And, really, all it takes to write a good paper is work.
Don't despair! The semester is not lost! See ya Monday.
As you are all surely aware, Exam 1 is rapidly approaching; it will arrive Friday. Note that a study guide to Exam 1 is linked to the course home page. It's a good idea to work through the study guide, since anything I will ask on the exam is, in some form, found in the study guide.
ALSO, in addition to our regular Wednesday afternoon review session, I will hold an evening review session Thursday, 7:00-8:00, in CVA 147.
Finally! The electronic grade sheet is up and running. There is a Check Your Grade link on the ECO 105 home page. Click it, then enter your ulid and password, and you should be able to see your grade records. Thanks to all the good people at LILT who helped me along and to Ray Cohn, my partner in crime here in the Econ department, who gave me some helpful hints.
Good afternoon! I hope you all had a nice holiday weekend. As for me, well, I survived, though not without loss.
As you may have noted, our course calendar indicates that a Graphical Homework Set is due this Friday. As of a few minutes ago (around 2:15), the homework set has been on our website. Go to the "Homework" page and open Graphical Homework Set 1. Print it off and draw as instructed. The assignment is pretty simple, but it's worth 10 points and it should aid in your preparation for Exam 1 (which is the Friday after this Friday).
If anyone dropped by my office after 11:00 this morning and found me missing, I apologize. I had a funeral to attend this morning, and I spent too much time trying to get the graphical homework linked to the web page. So I more or less ran out the door and failed to post a note explaining my absence.
The scores are in on Homework Quiz 1. The class average was a respectable - though far from great - 8.72, or roughly 73%. That's a solid C. Scores ranged from 3 to 12 (only two people scored 3, while five of you turned in perfect scores.) Better yet, 38 of you scored 11 points. Well done!
Have a great holiday weekend. I'll be "floating" with my family and several in-laws on one of Southern Missouri's many fine rivers.
Some of you may have started to print off Monday's slideshow on Saturday and found that the link was to Friday's lecture. (Many thanks to Kim Sabo for alerting me to this.) As of 11:20 this morning, the link is good to go. I suspect that I actually posted the correct slideshow on Friday, but the software I use can be ... odd, shall I say. I had to change the link several times this morning before the correct link would actually show up on the website. Sometimes the program has a mind of its own. Bis morgan, as they say in Germany.
Welcome to any and all curious ECO 105, section 3, students. The awful day of reckoning - the 18th of August - is coming soon. Will you be ready? Actually, the realquestion is, Will I be ready? This is a valid question, since I'm sitting in a temporary office in Williams Hall while typing this missive, but I am supposed to be ensconced in my luxurious quarters in Stevenson 430 when the semester begins. Alas, it's less than certain - though highly probable - that I will be in my office, it's less certain that my computer and phone will be hooked up, and it's highly likely that most of my books and papers will still be in boxes. What a way to start a school year!
But fear not! I've taken all my crucial materials home, and I will be ready to go when the 18th arrives. I hope you're ready too. See ya soon.