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Missed Exams & Quizzes

22Feb’22

Syllabus Languages & Policies

What Is the Value of a Policy on Missed Exams and Quizzes? 

It is valuable to remember that students, like everyone else, have complicated lives outside the classroom: they may get sick and have family emergencies, and these can sometimes come at critical points in the semester. Having a policy on missed exams and quizzes allows students to know what to do in those cases and can help mitigate the consequences for them. 

Penn Policies for Finals

Penn has a set of policies that govern final exams, including policies for students who cannot take their final: 

  • The official make up period is the first week of spring or fall semester for any student who has to miss an exam due to illness, death in the family, religious observance, or some other unusual circumstance. 
  • Students who have three final exams in one day can reschedule the exam that takes place in the middle. That exam can be rescheduled during the final exam period if the student and instructor can agree on a date, or it can be held during the official make up period. 

Student Health Services will not provide notes verifying student illnesses. Therefore, you should design policies that do not require medical confirmation. Should a student miss a midterm and not reach out to you, you should contact the student's advising office. 

Questions to Consider

  1. To avoid a burdensome number of additional exams and quizzes just before the deadline, what will you need a student to submit to help you complete your grading in a timely fashion? 
  2. How can you acknowledge that emergencies come up but also provide students with incentives for taking the exam on time? 

Policies Examples from Penn Professors

CHEM 2411: Principles of Organic Chemistry I, Upper-level Undergraduate Lecture

There will be three, one-hour exams (100 points each) and an optional opportunity to retake each of these hour exams (100 points each), and all of these will be given during class time. Only your higher grade will be counted for each of these three sets of exams, although there will be no make-up exams offered for any of these dates. 

Students missing the final examination must obtain permission to retake the make-up exam the following semester (scheduled by the Registrar's Office) from an advisor in the SAS office.    

NURS 1630: Integrated Anatomy, Physiology, and Physical Assessment I, Introductory-level Undergraduate Lecture 

Makeup tests, quizzes and assessments will be given without penalty ONLY in the event of an excused absence when the instructor has been notified before the evaluation is given. Acceptable excuses for missing an examination or quiz are death, serious illness, court appearance, or personal crisis.  Documentation (e.g., notification via online Course Action Notice AND personal email to the instructor) must be provided before the class in which the evaluation is administered. Unexcused absences from exams and quizzes will result in significant point penalties.  A student may take no more than one penalty-free makeup assessment (i.e., quiz or examination) per semester. 

MATH 1300: Introduction to Calculus, Undergraduate Lecture 

We expect there will be 10 Friday quizzes this semester, 7 of which will count towards your grade.  Each quiz will last 25 minutes and will consist of 3 questions, generally related to that week’s material. Because of the logistical complexity associated with frequent quizzing and the need to quickly grade and return thousands of pages of work each week, we unfortunately cannot offer make-up quizzes if you miss one. Instead, we handle missed quizzes (or, more generally, any situation in which you just have an off week and aren’t at your best) through what we call ReQuizzes. Roughly every fourth quiz is designated as a ReQuiz. Unlike regular quizzes, ReQuizzes are partially cumulative and cover topics encountered since the previous ReQuiz. Your score on the ReQuiz automatically replaces one of your most recent, ordinary Friday quiz scores (any one of the quizzes taken since the previous ReQuiz) if you missed it or just generally didn’t do as well on it. Missing a ReQuiz or doing poorly on it does not hurt your grade, but does represent a missed opportunity to fix missing or low quiz grades. 

Course Policies & Syllabus Language

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