Math 3680.001: Fall 2009
Meets: TR 9:30-10:50 in Gateway Building, Room 141.
Instructor: Professor John Quintanilla
Office: GAB, Room 418-D (Note: I have moved offices.)
Office Phone: x4043
E-mail: jquintanilla@unt.edu
Web page: http://www.math.unt.edu/~johnq/3680/
Office Hours: M 10-12, W 10-12, R 11-12:30, or by appointment. I'm
fairly easy to find, and you're welcome to drop by outside of office hours
without an appointment. However, there will be occasions when I'll be busy,
and I may ask you to wait or come back later.
Required Text: Statistics for the Sciences,
by M. Buntinas and G. M. Funk.
Strongly Recommended: Lecture notes for the semester are available
at the UNT Copy Center for approximately $18.
Prerequisite: Math 1710 and Math 1720 (may be taken concurrently).
Student Responsibilities
- You should read over this syllabus carefully, as I will hold you
responsible for the information herein.
- Students will be expected to read the chapters carefully,
including the examples in the book.
- Students will be responsible for obtaining any and all handouts.
If you are not in class when handouts are given, it is your
responsibility to obtain copies.
- You should begin working now. Frequent practice is crucial
to the successful completion of a mathematics course. Cramming at
the last minute will certainly lead to failure.
- WARNING: If you are in academic trouble, or are in danger
of losing your financial support, or if your parent or guardian
is expecting a certain grade at the end of the semester...
start working today. I will refuse to listen to any pleas at the
end of the semester. You will receive precisely the grade that
you earn.
Grading Policies
You may find the advice of former Math 3680 students helpful.
The following schedule is tentative and is subject to capricious changes
in case of extracurricular events deemed sufficiently important to the
upper administration.
| Final Exam |
Thursday, December 17 8:00-10:00 am |
24% |
| Exam 1 |
c. Week 4 |
19% |
| Exam 2 |
c. Week 8 |
19% |
| Exam 3 |
c. Week 13 |
19% |
| Homework |
|
19% |
|
|
|
|
|
| A |
90% and above |
| B |
80% and below 90% |
| C |
70% and below 80% |
| D |
60% and below 70% |
| F |
below 60% |
|
Cooperation is encouraged in doing the homework assignments. However, cheating will not be tolerated
on the exams. If you are caught cheating, you will be
subject to any penalty the instructor deems appropriate, up to
and including an automatic F for the course.
Attendance is not required for this class. However, you will be
responsible for everything that I cover in class, even if you are
absent. It is my experience that students who skip class frequently
make poorer grades than students who attend class regularly.
You should consider this if you don't think you'll be able to
wake up in time for class consistently.
The grade of "I" is designed for students who are unable to complete
work in a course but who are currently passing the course. The guidelines
are clearly spelled out in the Student Handbook. Before you ask,
you should read these requirements.
Exam Policies
- Unless announced otherwise, calculators will not be
permitted for use on exams.
- I expect to give exams during the weeks above. However, these are
tentative dates. I will announce the exact date of each exam in
class. The Final Examination is scheduled for Thursday, December 17,
8:00-10:00 am.
- After exams are returned in class, you have 48 hours to appeal
your grade. I will not listen to any appeals after this 48-hour period.
- I will not drop the lowest exam score; all will count toward the
final grade.
- No make up exams will be given. For those students who miss an
exam due to an Authorized Absence (see the Student Handbook),
the final grade will be computed based only on those exams taken,
together with homework/quiz scores and the final exam.
Such students will be required to provide official written
verification of such an absence.
- Students missing an exam for unauthorized reasons will receive
0 (zero) points on the exam.
- The Final Examination will be comprehensive in the sense that
problems may come from any of the sections that will be covered during
the semester.
- The grade of A signifies consistent excellence over the
course of the semester. In particular, an A on the final is not equivalent
to an A for the course.
- I reserve the right to test and quiz you on problems which are
generalizations of material covered in the class and/or in the text.
In short, the problems may not look exactly like the ones in the book.
- Everything that I say in class is fair game for exam material.
You will be responsible for everything unless I advise you to the contrary.
Homework Policies
- Homework will be assigned every Tuesday and
will be due the following Tuesday.
- I expect the assignments that you turn in to be
written up carefully and neatly,
with the answers clearly marked. You must show all of your work.
Messy homework will not be accepted.
- Entire homework assignments will not be graded. Instead,
only five representative problems will be graded per
assignment. As a consequence, it will be possible to not do the entire
assignment and still receive a perfect score on that particular assignment.
Deliberately leaving homework uncompleted is highly unrecommended,
however, as the law of averages will surely catch up with you as the
semester progresses.
- When computing grades, I will drop the two lowest homework
grades before computing the homework average. Therefore, in principle,
you could get a 100% homework score and also not turn in two assignments
during the semester. I have this policy in case you get sick, a family
emergency arises, etc., during the semester. You will still be responsible
for the material in such assignments during the examinations.
- Because of this policy, I will not give extensions on homework
assignments, nor will I accept late assignments.
Final Note
In compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, I mention
the following: It is the responsibility of students with certified
disabilities to provide the instructor with appropriate documentation
from the Dean of Students Office.