• Doing the occasional extra credit components for Aplia can improve your final grade.  However, for each extra credit opportunity, you must get at least half the answers correct to get any credit at all for that opportunity (to discourage random guessing at answers). 
   

• It may appear from your Aplia scoring percentage that you are penalized if you do not do the extra credit.  However, this is not true.  In my own grade book, no one will be penalized for skipping the extra credit.  The issue is that Aplia always scores the extra credit assignments as if they were mandatory assignments (they don't give me any choice).  At the end of the semester, I will appropriately adjust the numerator and denominator of your Aplia score in my own grade book to separate out the extra credit component.  
   

• I will initially determine baseline final grades for all students without considering extra credit.  Each student will earn at least the baseline grade.  Then I will check whether a student has attained enough extra credit to improve the grade.  If the baseline grade is borderline, then doing a small amount of extra credit – if done well – might be enough to improve the grade.  For each extra credit opportunity, you must earn at least half of the possible points in order to receive any points at all for that opportunity.  Extra credit rarely improves the final grade by a full letter grade; more typical is one-half letter grade (e.g., from a C+ to B-). 
  
   

• The extra credit paper is worth 3 times as much as an Aplia extra credit assignment.
   

• See the syllabus (top of the class webpage) for more details.

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