Midterm 1 results

I thought some of you may be interested in the results of the first midterm. I obviously can't post your invidual results, and, in fact, don't have them, but I do have an analysis of the complete data set.

The overall mean was 80% and the median was 83% (for skewed distributions like this the median is a better description of the 'typical' value than the mean.)

Highest score was 100%, and two students in different sections managed to achieve this - well done.

Section means were very similar and no section mean was more then 3% away from the overall mean of 80%

The histogram of scores is above and the breakdown by grade is below.

A (ie >=90%) - 31%
B - 31%
C - 17%
D - 12%
F - 9%

Looking at the individual questions I see no problems. Lowest % correct was 53% for Q6 (a calculation), Q37 (a calculation) and Q43 ('what evolved before what' question). These were all meant to be hard questions.
Highest % correct was 97% (two questions).
I have looked closely at all the questions where either less than two thirds of you got the correct answer (5 questions) or more than 20% of you picked a particular incorrect answer (8 questions) and don't see any problems.

John