Dear IL'ites,
The correct answers are...
1.What is the professor trying to achieve by making mid-term optional? - She is trying to keep the students (particularly those who scored less than 40 marks in mid-term) motivated to study the subject throughout the course.
- If a student gets less than 40 marks in mid-term, he has no chance of getting an A grade. Even if he gets full 50 marks in final, he still gets a B grade. Consequently the student will lose interest in the subject. If the student can override his mid-term marks with final marks, then he essentially starts over. To get an “A” grade, the student just needs to do the final exam well and get more than 45 marks.
2.Why didn't she make the final exam optional?
- That would make the students who got more than 45 marks in mid-term to completely ignore the second half of the course. Because, they essentially have locked in an “A” grade. Similarly, those who got less than 40 marks would also give up, because they essentially got a B grade. It will only keep the students who got between 40 and 45 marks interested to take the final exam.
3.What type of a student will skip taking the mid-term exam?
- Only the student who is 100% confident that he will get more than 45 marks in final will skip the mid-term exam.
At its core, economics is all about incentives and that is what makes it a fascinating subject.
Linear Mode
