Daily work is graded according to the following scale
| 5 points | complete and essentially correct |
| 4 points | good effort but some errors or work missing |
| 3 points | minimally acceptable |
| 2 points | turned in but insufficient effort or understanding of concept |
| 0 points | not turned in |
Generally I throw out the lowest scores corresponding to a typical week's worth of work (but see the syllabus for the particular course.) Periodically or near the end of the course I will will give each student an accounting of the daily work received. You should retain all work handed back so that if I have not recorded some daily work correctly a correction of my records can be made.
Students who miss an excessive amount of daily work (i.e. in excess of the equivalent of two class weeks) will (in most of my courses, but see the syllabus of the particular course) have an opportunity to make this up by an optional final exam. The optional final exam is usually quite challenging and there is no review. Basically this is your chance to prove to me that even though you have missed class you know the material. The grade on the optional final will be adjusted to a 5 point scale (possibly a fractional value, eg. 90% = 4.5) and this score will replace 0's for all work missed in excess of twice the number of assignments thrown out. This means, for example, if 3 assignments are to be thrown out, you have missed 8, and you receive a grade of 84% on the optional final then two of your 0 grades will be replaced by the score 4.2, but you will still have 3 zeros. In rare cases when there is documented illness or other problems not under the control of the student (family vacations and work related absences do not apply here) a student may be allowed to make up all missed daily work by the optional final.