FAQ

I missed (or will miss) a Tutorial session, examlet, or homework - what do I do?

PrairieLearn seems to be unenrolling me, or giving me weird access errors!

You are probably in CS 128, which uses a separate PrairieLearn login. So log in again with your standard UIUC credentials (either in a different browser or after logging out of your 128 account).

Which building is "Siebel"?

If we ever forget to specify, we're talking about Siebel Center for Computer Science, not Siebel Center for Design.

Regrades / broken questions

We try to write questions with no errors and to grade with perfect accuracy. But, of course, we are only human. Mistakes happen and need to be corrected.

I haven't submitted the problem yet, but it's clearly self-contradictory (or otherwise broken)!

While our questions are sometimes broken, the vast majority of the time the question's fine and you are misreading it. It's not too late to figure out what it really means and get it right! Read it again, and make sure you're spending at least as much effort trying to figure out how you could be wrong as you spend trying to explain to us why we're wrong. (Though sometimes the latter is a good way to do the former - write out very explicitly why we're wrong, and then review your argument critically, looking for the weakest point.) If you still think it's wrong and it's a homework question, talk to us in office hours or Piazza; if it's an examlet, then take your best guess.

I submitted the problem, and disagree with the grade I received (either the grading or the question seems wrong).

First look over the given solution and try to figure out on your own what went wrong. If our solution doesn't make sense, talk to us at office hours rather than submitting a regrade request. If after the previous steps you want to submit a regrade request, go to the question on PrairieLearn and click the "Report an error in this question" button. If the issue is with your grade rather than with the question, start your report with the words "Regrade request:", and then tell us why the grading is incorrect (we don't accept just "regrade request", "please look at this again", etc with no explanation). Regrade requests might not be considered if submitted beyond one week from when we post grades for the assignment.

Curving / letter grade cutoffs / extra credit

See this page. In particular,

Is an 87% enough for a B+? (etc)

We do not guarantee any thresholds in advance other than the ones linked above. But in the last few semesters we've used 80/83/87 for B-/B/B+ (same split for A and C; 50/57/63 for D-/D/D+), and the most likely outcome is that the thresholds will be the same again this semester.

Is the course curved?

No.

Are individual assignments curved?

No.

Are grades rounded up, e.g. is a 79.5 or a 79.95 the same as an 80?

No, we will use the precise score. (And relatedly, grades are not rounded down either - note that PrairieLearn might display rounded down scores, e.g. you might get an 84.9% on an examlet and it might show up as an 84%, but we will use the precise score in our final calculations.)