Assessment and Grades Guide

How your grade works and what we want you to understand • MATH 2200: Calculus 1

How your course grade is built

Component	Weight	What it is
Concept standards	60% (15% each)	Four standards — LOCAL, CHANGE, ACCUMULATE, CONNECT — each reported as a level from 0 to 4 (described below).
Section work	40%	Work assigned by your instructor. Further details in the syllabus and/or on this WyoCourse.

Your overall percentage translates to a letter grade as described in the syllabus.

The concept standards and the levels

Each standard is a body of understanding, first assessed on its cycle's exam and reported as one level. Every problem on a standard's exam, reassessment, or later opportunity is written from this guide's description of the standard.

Level	In plain language
4 — Thorough	Secure understanding demonstrated flexibly, with clear connections or transfer.
3 — Secure	Meets the course target: conceptually correct, appropriately justified, and successfully applied.
2 — Developing	Central understanding is present, but important gaps, inconsistencies, or dependence on familiar forms remain.
1 — Beginning	Some relevant knowledge or procedure is evident, but a major conceptual gap remains.
0 — Insufficient Evidence	The work does not yet provide usable evidence of understanding.

How standard exams are graded

There are no points on exams. Each problem receives one mark:

✓ convincing — the central reasoning is right; minor arithmetic or algebraic errors do not prevent this mark;
~ partial — meaningful work with an important gap;
× not yet — little or no usable work.

The problems come in three groups, named for the level they earn:

To earn…	You need…
Level 1	At least one ✓ or ~ somewhere on the exam.
Level 2	✓ marks on the Foundations problems — the short computational tasks.
Level 3	✓ marks on most of the Core ideas problems — the reasoning tasks: explain, justify, judge.
Level 4	Level 3, plus a ✓ on the Putting it together problem — using the ideas together in a new situation.

Each level is earned on its own problems, and a higher level counts for every level below it. Convincing Foundations work is insurance — it holds Level 2 even if the Core problems fall short — but it is not a gate: Levels 3 and 4 are earned on the Core and Putting-it-together problems alone.

The exact counts appear in a small table on each exam's cover sheet. Each instructor grades one problem for every section, and can request a second opinion in borderline cases.

Written to the end-of-semester standard. For every standard, Levels 3 and 4 describe the understanding we want you to have by the end of the course, and assessments may use any ideas related to that standard — including topics your section may not have emphasized yet. So it is normal and expected not to be at Level 3 or 4 on a standard's first exam. Because the bar never moves, a level, once earned, is safe: your recorded level can only go up.

How your work is judged

No penalty for a wrong attempt. Wrong answers and blanks both just provide less evidence; an honest partial attempt always beats a blank.
Show your reasoning — explanations earn marks. When a problem asks why, the why is the answer, and this works in your favor: a deep conceptual explanation, in clear words or pictures, can earn a partial or even a convincing mark by itself, even when the symbolic work is incomplete or imperfect. Sound graphical and verbal reasoning count fully, and following identical steps to the intended solution is not required. The reverse also holds: correct symbolic work that never shows what the symbols mean or why the steps apply may not receive convincing marks.
Say what kind of claim you are making. Use = only for exact statements and ≈ for estimates, with units when the situation has them.
Cross out anything you do not want assessed. A minor arithmetic or algebraic error carried honestly through later steps is only counted once — as long as the error does not make the later work simpler than intended.

Reading your grades in WyoCourses

Each concept standard appears as its own entry (LOCAL, CHANGE, ACCUMULATE, CONNECT) showing your current level. Where WyoCourses requires a number, levels 4/3/2/1/0 appear as 100/90/75/50/0 — the number is just the level in disguise, not a percentage of points.
A standard that has not been assessed yet shows no entry — blank is not a zero.
Missing means an unresolved absence on an assessment, not a zero; contact your instructor to resolve it.
Section-work items (and how they are recorded) are described by your instructor.

About the running "Total."

WyoCourses computes the running total only from items that already have grades. Early in the semester it is based on very little, so it can swing a lot from one entry to the next.
Because standards enter as level-numbers rather than earned points, a mid-semester total is a blend — it is not a tally of points you have "lost" or "banked."
The most useful reading is the pieces, not the single number: your current level on each assessed standard, plus your section-work items. Once all four standards and your section work are recorded, the total matches the weights above.

After an exam

Your level is not final. After each exam you will have structured opportunities to raise it — a correction assignment and a reassessment — and further opportunities later in the semester. Details are posted with those assignments in the cycle's WyoCourses module.

The LOCAL standard (Cycle 1)

LOCAL is about the behavior of a function near a single point — what values approach, whether the function is continuous, how fast it is changing right there, and how well a straight line can stand in for it nearby — together with a habit that runs through all of it: claiming no more than your evidence supports.

What happens near a point

Tell apart the value at a point and the values near it — from a graph, a table, or a formula — including one-sided approaches.
Know that a limit is one exact number: tables and graphs can suggest it, but only reasoning that covers all nearby inputs can pin it down.
Decide whether a function is continuous at a point, and whether a break could be repaired by changing a single value.
Recognize when continuity guarantees that something must happen — and what it does not guarantee (where it happens, or how many times).

The line the graph wants to be

Tell average rates from instantaneous rates, and say what a rate means in the situation, with units.
Know that the derivative at a point is the exact number the average rates close in on — and what kind of reasoning it takes to be sure of it.
Build the local line from a value and a slope, and use it for nearby estimates, labeled as estimates.
Judge how far a local prediction deserves your trust, and spot where a graph fails to be line-like (corners, jumps).

Together — this is Level 4

Put all of the above together in an unfamiliar situation, keeping four kinds of claim straight: what is observed, what is assumed, what is estimated, and what is guaranteed.

The other standards

CHANGE (Cycle 2), and then ACCUMULATE and CONNECT (together, Cycle 3) are assessed later in the semester. Their sections will be added to this guide as each cycle begins — the levels, marks, and grading above will not change.

If you are working with a tutor or helper: show them this page (it prints cleanly if they want a copy). The most useful help is practice explaining the current standard's ideas — for LOCAL: why a limit or slope is exact (or only suggested), what continuity does and does not guarantee, what a rate means with its units, and how far a local prediction deserves trust — in your own words, without notes, the way the exam will ask.