ASTR 222 Spring 2018 Final Exam rules

• On Tue May 1, the exam will be available for you to pick up from me any time before 4pm. It will be a take-home, open-notes exam, and you may take as much time on it as you wish. The exam will be exactly the same style as the midterms, just with a few more questions; see the final exam study questions on the course website for details. Your completed exam is due back to me no later than 4pm on Monday May 7th. (Turning it in before that deadline is perfectly fine as well.)

• I will also give you blue books in which to write your answers -- you must use the the blue books to write your answers. There will be page limits on your answers -- no more than one page for an individual short answer question (although you can use more space for a sketch if you need to), and no more than 4 pages for an individual essay. There is no advantage in writing excessively long answers; I will stop reading after the page limits have been hit and only grade based on what I have read.  Please don't write in tiny illegibly-small handwriting to get around these limits and cram tons of extraneous info into your answers, that won't help your grade.

• I will hand you the test in a sealed envelope. BEFORE you break that seal and read the questions, you are free to study together, to come ask me questions about topics, etc. AFTER you break that seal and read the questions, the exam has officially begun for you, and you may not talk to your classmates about the exam questions or come to me for additional help. And also, after you finish the exam, don't talk about it with other students who have not yet finished it themselves. This part is on the honor system, obviously, but I trust you to hold to it. Violations of this rule are unfair to your classmates and will be considered a violation of CWRU's academic integrity policy.

• Again, the exam is open notes and open time. So if you want to open it up right away and spend a week formulating your answers, be my guest. (But, really?) Or you can spend a few days studying with classmates and asking me questions, and then take it later in the week or over the weekend. It's up to you -- I'm trying to give you as much flexibility as possible in how you do it.

• If this arrangement truly is a hardship for you in terms of how it plays with your other exams, please talk to me IN ADVANCE before (or when) you pick up the exam.

• I will be available all next week to help with course concepts (provided, of course, you haven't already opened the exam). But I would suggest shooting me an email before you come in just to ensure I will be in my office and able to chat when you come.

• Finally, remember that HW#5 is due 4pm on May 1, and no later than 4pm on May 4 if you are turning it in late. When you turn in that HW I will also give you its solution set so that you can study from that as well.