• Most Wed./Thurs. discussion section meetings will have two "parts": 1) working in small groups for final polishing of solutions to the problem set for that week, which will be due the next day, and 2) new material, interpretation or calculations involving data from the original literature, which will be handed out to the small groups at the discussion section but will not be posted online; exams may include questions based on the latter problems as well as on posted problem set material.

General Policies and Grading

• Exams.  There will be 3 100-point hour exams and a 200-point final exam (the Wed. of finals, 12/17/2008, 2:00-4:00 pm). BE SURE YOU NOTE THE EXAM DATES, WHICH ARE ON THE LECTURE SCHEDULE. The final exam is a 2-hour exam covering both the last part of the course (about 40-50% of final exam) and questions from the first three parts of the course (about 50-60% of the exam). All 4 exams "count" -- no exam grade will be dropped. Students are expected to take all exams at their scheduled times. Students will only be excused from taking an exam at the scheduled time for illness or a death in the family or other university-excused absence, and then ONLY IF DR. MCEVOY RECEIVES NOTIFICATION BEFORE 3:00 P.M. THE DAY OF THE EXAM. That notification can be in the form of a telephone call to her office phone (number above; voicemail message is acceptable -- time of message is recorded), an email (address above), or a fax to the departmental office fax: 520-626-9204 with Dr. McEvoy's name on it. Be sure to provide contact information for setting up a time for a make-up exam, preferably both an email address and a telephone number where you can be reached. Written proof of the problem, such as a note from a physician, is required in order to take a make-up exam, which should be taken as soon as possible, normally the next day. If the student has a medical excuse covering more than one day, the make-up should be taken on the first day after the medical problem is resolved; in any case, all make-up exams must be completed before the graded original exams are handed back in class, which will generally be a week after the original exam date. Answer keys for exams will usually be posted on the website at the end of the day that the exams are returned to students.
  You'll need a simple calculator that can do logs and natural logs (ln) for exams, and it is expected that you will be able to do simple integral logs₁₀ and antilogs without a calculator.
  
  
• Short quizzes.  Each of the 4 short quizzes (all multiple choice or very short answer questions, dates in lecture schedule) is worth 20 points; the lowest quiz grade will be dropped, and no excuse is needed for missing one quiz for any reason, but the missed quiz would become the dropped grade. There will be no make-up quizzes, so if you skip one quiz and then are ill for another, you'll already have used up your "freebie", and one of the missed quizzes will be counted as a zero. If you miss a quiz for an excused reason, SAVE your documentation in case you have another excused absence, in which case documentation for both would be required for normalizaton of total quiz grades. The quizzes individually don't count for a lot of points, but those 60 possible points could easily make a letter grade difference at the end of the course. Answer keys for quizzes will be posted on the website, usually the day after the quiz.
  
  
• Problem Sets.   Each problem set is worth 15 points. There will be twelve assignments, all due on Fridays at the beginning of class except P.S. 5 and P.S. 6 -- see lecture schedule. The lowest problem set grade will be dropped, so the maximum problem set point total is 165. Problem sets will normally not be regraded except in cases of arithmetic errors in the total. Answer keys for problem sets will generally be posted on the website at the end of the day that the assignments were due, but on rare occasions posting of key will be delayed by as much as 3 days. Please also see notes below on the subject of problem sets.
  
  
• Grading.   The final grade will be determined based on the total points in the class (sections 1-6 out of 725 points: 300 pts from hour exams, 200 pts from final exam, 60 pts from 3 best quizzes, 165 pts from 11 best problem sets; section 7H out of 900 points, the 725 points described above plus 175 points for the honors discussions/projects). Grades will be curved if necessary based on class performance, but the final course grade cut-offs (minimum percentage grades required) for final grades of A, B, C, and D, will be no higher than 90, 80, 70, and 60% respectively. Although a letter grade distribution will be posted for each exam, those posted letter grade distributions for individual exams will be intended simply as general guidelines for students to assess their ongoing performance in the class; we will not record letter grades for individual exams and thus will not agonize over the posted "cut-offs" for each exam. 
  
  
• Regrading of Exams.  Do NOT write anything on the exam itself if you want to turn it in for regrading.  Requests for regrading of exam questions must be made in writing and turned in to Dr. McEvoy within one week after the return of exams; later requests for regrading will not be accepted. In your request, you should explain why your answer is correct. Dr. McEvoy will generally refer the question to the member of the instructional staff who graded the relevant question(s) to ensure fairness and consistency, and she will review the decisions. Be aware that the entire test may be regraded when a regrading request is made.
  
  
• Cheating.   Cheating will absolutely not be tolerated. The Student Code of Conduct may be found at http://w3.arizona.edu/~studpubs/policies/studcofc.htm. Anyone caught cheating will fail this course and be subject to disciplinary proceedings as prescribed by university policies, described at http://w3.arizona.edu/~studpubs/policies/studdisc.htm. Potential outcomes of disciplinary proceedings include expulsion from the University.  Changing your answer on a test after it has been returned and then requesting a regrading of the exam is cheating.  We will copy random exams to discourage this form of cheating, so don't do it!  While we enthusiastically encourage group efforts in discussing and solving problem set problems, the work you hand in for problem sets must be your own calculations and written in your own words.  Stealing problem sets or copying problem set answers would definitely also be a form of academic dishonesty.  We obviously don't want or expect to have to deal with cheating, and you certainly won't want to deal with the consequences!  Bottom line: Don't do it!
  
  
• Checking your recorded grades.   It is strongly advised that students retain all graded written work in the course at least until they have checked the posted grades on the web to be sure they have been accurately recorded. A human being enters the grades into the computer, and errors sometimes occur despite our best efforts; you should check your own recorded grades carefully as soon as they're posted. (See "Grades" on the D2L website for this course.)
  

Course Format 

• Classes: Each week lecture will be held in CHEM 111 on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 3 PM. In addition to the 3 lectures/week, there are small discussion sections that meet on Wednesdays and Fridays (section 7H) or Thursdays (sections 1-6) at the times scheduled. You should be enrolled in one section and that is the section you should attend; your problem sets will be handed in for grading by the TA for that section, and returned in that discussion section by the TA the next week.  Problem sets are due at beginning of class Fridays (except Problem Sets 1 and 7, due the next Monday).
  
  
• Discussion sections/problem sets: Problem set assignments will be posted on the web. Each assignment will consist of questions/problems that will be discussed in the discussion section the following Thursday. During the discussion section, the students will be divided into small groups. You will work with your group to answer the questions, with help as needed from the instructor and the TA. Our aim is to help you work through the problems to the correct conclusion, but not to tell you the answers. We expect that every student will arrive at discussion section every week with essentially all the work on the problem set already done, and armed with questions for other students and instructors about what he/she could not complete independently. Each student will write out the answers to all questions and turn them in at the beginning of lecture on the indicated due date in envelopes or folders labeled with your TA and/or section number. Be sure to put your section number and TA name, as well as your own name, on the assignment.  While students are definitely encouraged to work together on solutions to the assigned questions, it is expected that each student will write out the answers independently to hand in; direct copying of assignments will be regarded as cheating. You must show your work/reasoning on all mathematical problems. NOTE: Late problem sets are not accepted. A problem set is considered late if it is not turned in by 3:10 p.m. on the date it is due (generally a Friday). An envelope or folder for each TA will be provided in class for turning in problem sets, but those envelopes will be picked up at 3:10 p.m. If you hand in your assignment to a TA during class but after 3:10 p.m., 3 points will be immediately deducted; assignments handed in anytime after class, including as the TA walks out the door of the classroom, will receive no credit. If you can't come to class that day, it is your responsibility to get your problem set to the course staff before 3:10 p.m. -- you can hand it in early to an instructor or TA, email it to your TA, leave it in the Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics Dept. office (362 Biol. Sciences West) to the attention of Dr. McEvoy with section number, TA NAME, and time noted, or fax it to the departmental office to the attention of Dr. McEvoy (fax number 520-626-9204). If you fax a problem set, include a cover sheet with how to reach you if there's a problem with it, and be sure to include Dr. McEvoy's name, course number, section number and TA NAME. NOTE THAT FAXES OF DOCUMENTS WRITTEN IN PENCIL ARE GENERALLY ILLEGIBLE! Finally, if there's a real emergency, e.g., if you’re in a car accident in Phoenix at noon on the due day, call Dr. McEvoy to see if something can be worked out.
  

  The last approximately 20-25 minutes of each Thursday discussion section will be spent on discussion of new material (problems/data interpretation), usually from original literature, and NOT posted online at all.   It is anticipated that some of this material from discussions, like some of the problem set problems, could provide the basis for exam questions.

• Honors Section Discussion sections/problem sets: Like sections 1-6, the honors section will be responsible for turning in the problem sets posted on the web each Friday, and will hand in the solutions when they are due for the rest of the class (usually the following Friday). There may be different or additional problems for the honors section, at the discretion of Dr. Park, who will also be in charge of the Wednesday and Friday meetings of the honors section and special project(s) or papers required of the honors section.
  

Course Website:  http://www.biochem.arizona.edu/classes/bioc462/462a/462a.html

• Course announcements, lecture notes, problem set assignments, problem set and exam answer keys, exam grade distributions, and instructions for graphics viewing will be available on the web.  (Actual grade posting will be on D2L.)  The course website should be fine for viewing with Safari, Mozilla Firefox, or current versions of Netscape, or with Internet Explorer 5.1 or later (except that the molecular graphics in Jmol don’t work with Explorer on a Mac with OS X).  For PRINTING, use the PDF versions of notes and problem sets.  (You can download browsers free from the web.) 
  

Where to Get Help [PDF of all staff office hours/availability]

• Each member of the course staff has a scheduled office hour each week, or if necessary will see you at other times by appointment, in addition to being available during the discussion sections.  After coming to class and consulting the notes and the textbook for answers, you are strongly urged to take the initiative to get help from the course staff or preceptors with anything you do not understand. We also encourage the use of email to ask questions. On the other hand, sometimes questions are much more efficiently addressed either face-to-face or over the telephone, where some "back and forth" clarification is possible.
  
• Undergraduate Preceptors

  In addition, we have six "alumni" of the BIOC 462A course who will be on-call to answer any of your biochemistry questions.  These Undergraduate Preceptors are each available for 3 hours every week.  To schedule an appointment with any of the preceptors, simply find one on the contact list below who would be available during a time that is convenient for you (see complete schedule on course website under Course Info) and e-mail that preceptor no less than 24 hours in advance.  The preceptor will respond to your e-mail to arrange a place to meet.  In the past, informal "study groups" made up of students who got together regularly with preceptors have been very beneficial for student learning. With the assistance of our preceptors, we are confident that there will be plenty of staff available to help you throughout the course.

  Name	Email	Availability (by appointment only, 24-hr advance notice by email)
  Yomi Ajulo	yajulo@email.arizona.edu	Mon 4-6 pm, Wed 4-5 pm
  Jimmy Chhun	jchhun@email.arizona.edu	Tues 6-8 pm
  Hayley Ennis	hennis@email.arizona.edu	Mon 1-3 pm, Thurs 11am - 12pm
  Aarthi Goverdhan	aarthi@email.arizona.edu	Tues 12-1 pm, Wed 1-2 pm, Fri 1-2 pm
  Trahern Jones	trahernj@email.arizona.edu	Thurs 4-6 pm, Fri 1-3 pm
  Megan Paul	megcraig@email.arizona.edu	Thurs 4-7 pm

• Tips for studying