Thu, 17 Oct 2013, 23:20

My students,

Based on emails I have gotten today from several students, it is clear to me
that I made a mistake not telling you in class yesterday what I plan to do 
about the results of the first programming assignment.  My reason was that
I wanted you to focus on Program 2 and not obsess about Program 1.  Clearly,
not telling you caused the opposite effect.

So, I am correcting it.

You may resubmit program 1 for regrading next week.  The details of the
process will be available on the website early on Monday, and you will have
about a week to do so.  I still want you to concentrate on Program 2 right
now, but at the same time, I want you to know what I have in mind for Program 1
so you can stop agonizing over it.  

As I see it, there are two situations:

1. You pretty much got the problem but made some small mistake, resulting in 
you getting a 0 rather than the 100 you would have gotten had you not made the
error.  Two examples from the email I got today: One student terminated his 
program with TRAP x23 instead of TRAP x25.  Another student calculated the 
offset wrong on his ST instruction so the reult was stored in the wrong memory
location.

For students in this situation: If your program can be fixed by changing
at most two instructions, you will have the opportunity to change up to two
instructions, email us the reason for the change, and resubmit the program.
Both examples above can easily be fixed according to this.  Your resubmission
will be graded, then have 10 points subtracted for this error.  The result
will replace your current grade on Program 1.  Thus, the student who
terminated his program with TRAP x23 can have his 0 grade replaced with a 90.

2. You pretty much did not know what to do and wish a fresh chance at Program 1.
You can submit a completely different program, with essentially all instructions
changed if you wish.  You my resubmit next week, and the resubmission will be 
graded.  Your grade on Program 1 will be the average of the grade you have
received already and the grade on the resubmission.  Suppose the grade you
saw yesterday was 10 and your new program gets 100.  Your grade in the record
books will be (10 + 100)/2 = 55.

As I said, the full details will be available after Program 2 is submitted,
so please concentrate on Program 2 this week, and put aside Program 1 until
next week.

Good luck getting Program 2 in on time. 

Yale Patt