<p>Does anyone know what the average for the 2nd midterm was?</p>
<p>In Liphardt’s class it was 74 with a standard deviation of 18.</p>
<p>do u know for fajans? I heard from the gsi’s that it was lower this time around than usually for this prof…</p>
<p>my friend told me mwf was a 44. ***. i wonder for section 2</p>
<p>On Monday my GSI mentioned that it looked like it might be around 50 for section 1, but that they didn’t know yet. I haven’t heard anything since then.</p>
<p>omg…does this mean Waiting4College actually did better than the average!!!</p>
<p>no…can this be true?</p>
<p>if it’s anything less than 65 I’m writing an awesome review for fajans…even though he’s a hack</p>
<p>Aw, do you not like him?</p>
<p>You actually like him? I haven’t learned physics at all from him. I just see a bunch of silly examples that generally fail. Never took physics in high school though so i don’t know what to expect.</p>
<p>I do like him; he makes the subject interesting, and he takes the time to explain things. I’ve never taken physics before, but I’m doing pretty well, so he must be doing something right.
A lot more of the learning definitely comes from discussion and doing the homework, but that’s what he said would happen anyway.</p>
<p>true, he gave up without even trying 
</p>
<p>damn, 44? mwf is such a fail.</p>
<p>I get that he’s a nice guy and it’s great that he’s made the subject interesting for you. </p>
<p>But why the f u c k am I paying so much money to teach myself physics from a s h i tt y book, google, and mastering physics</p>
<p>He’s a crap professor who can’t execute a simple demo, derives 1 equation that we will never use in an entire lecture, and relies on his ill informed graduate students to do the scut-work. no wonder the majority of the class failed an exam that should have been relatively simple (with some proper guidance). </p>
<p>and his grading for exams is bull s h i t as well…including things that were not asked in the question or points are knocked off, wow.</p>
<p>what a crappy representation of the “world class faculty” Berkeley is said to have.</p>
<p>Huh, that’s weird. I feel like he’s much more helpful/instructive than a lot of other science professors who just reiterate material from either a book or powerpoint slides. I also feel like the grading on the exams is pretty generous, especially compared to multiple choice exams for other classes. A lot of credit is given just for having the basic governing equations, and very few points are taken off for minor errors.</p>
<p>Edit: I think also many people may have done badly on the exam because he draws a lot from the concepts he discusses in lecture, and I’ve noticed that a lot of people don’t attend lecture.</p>
<p>Honestly, I’d rather have him spit out stuff from the book since the book isn’t that helpful either, but hey, at least it makes better sense than his explanations sometimes. I mean if it’s helpful to you, so be it. But as 123 said, I’m not paying to learn physics by myself. (And hell my GSI can barely speak English; I have to go to OH to learn the workbook material.) I’ve gone to every lecture except for the two this week (sprained ankles are such a pain in the ass here…damn uphill).
As for the test, of course he has to give out credit for every logical thing. There’s only 4 questions. If he didn’t give out anything, we’d all be screwed and no one would ever take this class.</p>
<p>49 vs 66 so unfair. i want to go to lecture one.</p>
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<p>like batman said, the book is a piece of trash. it would be better if he could decipher it rather than not (and waste an hr of my time as well).</p>
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<p>it’s great that you’re happy with the mediocrity that fajans so obviously finds acceptable. I on the other hand would prefer to correctly answer questions and be made sure that I understand the concepts (like the AP physics exam). It’s a sad state of affairs when a student can get 0/4 questions and still end up with a 65. I just expected the bar to be set a bit higher …(off the ground).</p>
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<p>I wasted the first quarter of the semester in 1 PIMENTEL from 3-4 every mwf and until only recently, I’ve realized that I could do something more productive or enjoyable. I can tell you first hand that an hour of his lecture dosn’t do anything that 5 minutes in a book or on the internet does. </p>
<p>Maybe it’s that you’ve never taken a physics class before but from my perspective (and the majority of the people I know in the class), it is being taught in a terrible way and we have earned a better education.</p>
<p>There are a lot of things you can do.</p>
<ol>
<li>Watch Professor Lewin’s lectures on the MIT OCW website.</li>
<li>Check out Resnick, Halliday and Krane’s Physics from the Berkeley library and study out of it. PM me for the solutions manual if you need it.</li>
<li>Go to your GSI’s office hours. I’ve been pretty impressed with my physics GSIs. I can’t really say the same for some GSIs in some other subjects.</li>
</ol>
<p>I dunno, do people really expect so much out of 8A? I thought that’s why we have the 7 series?
At any rate, I’m not saying that it’s great that standards are so low, but I was responding to 123’s complaints about grading being unfairly harsh.
I believe homework problems and discussion are for making sure you understand the concepts, and the exams serve a different purpose.
As for the averages being different, the way the final grades are determined means that the averages don’t matter, just where you are relative to the average.</p>
<p>lol check out the histogram on bspace</p>