Course Homepage

Your course homepage has all these really colorful bars to help you track your progress in this course! The height of the bar for each week is determined by the different components of your homework, as well as a Class Participation score. Aim to turn each bar green or blue.

Overview Tab

The Overview Tab displays a brief overview of your progress: your Overall bar for each week so far.

Homework Tab

Gray boxes at the top of each week's Homework tab gives you more detailed information about that week's assignments, and which of them you have already completed. Find more about the Homework tab on this page.

My Goals tab

If your class has a My Goals tab, all of your weekly assignments will be listed on this page. Still-to-be-completed assignments are noted on the My Goals tab with an empty box ₤, while completed assignments are noted with a checked box ₣. You can read more about the other awesome features of My Goals on this page.

Report Tab

The Report contains the most detailed breakdown of your progress across all weeks of the class. Click on any large bar to split it into its component pieces. You can also hover over any of the smaller bars to get more details on how you are doing with that part of class.

Alcumus Report

If your class has Alcumus assignments, you can view a more detailed breakdown of your Alcumus progress on your Alcumus Report. You can access your Alcumus report by selecting Alcumus from below the Resources heading at the top of any AoPS page, and then selecting "Report" from the menu that appears on the Alcumus page.

On the Alcumus Report, click on any topic name to review the problems you have answered within that topic.

Email Reminders

On the day before your next live class session, we'll send you an email reminder. That email will include the time, date, and topic of the next class, as well as a breakdown of each component of your homework. The email will warn you about any due dates that are coming up and what is due on those dates. If you have Alcumus or Challenge Problems, we'll include a separate note about any overdue problems/topics that have not been completed by their due date.

FAQs

Below are some frequently asked questions about tracking your progress in an AoPS class.

• What's up with the colors?

  The bars will turn green when they decide that you've done enough work to "pass" that particular part of class. A blue progress bar means that you've gone above and beyond to "master" that part of the class. A red or orange bar means "Keep on trucking!"

  Important: If your course has Writing Problem, your overall bar will never turn green or blue in a week where you do not attempt the Writing Problems.

  On your Homework tab, the color of the heading of the box that contains "Problem X" also gives you information about how you did on each short-answer problem:

  	Light Green: In progress.
  	Blue: Answered correctly on your first attempt!
  	Medium Green: Answered correctly after your first attempt.
  	Orange: Gave up after one or more attempt.
  	Red: Gave up without attempting.

• What's "Class Participation"?

  Your Class Participation bar is a measure of whether you show up to the live class sessions and how active you are during class.

• What if I miss a class or can't ever attend class?

  Don't worry about it. Missing a class won't affect our feelings for you (or your grade if you care about such things). Class Participation is such a small part of your overall weekly progress, it will not prevent you from achieving a green or blue that week.

  If you'll be requesting a grade or other documentation at the end of the course, and you weren't able to attend any classes, remind us of the special situation when submitting your request.

  Make sure to look over our "Missing A Class" guide for more information about how to catch up after missing a class.

• How do the different components factor into the Overall bar?

  A general note: for any course with Writing Problems, Writing Problems are weighted much more than your Short-Answer Challenge Problems, so make sure to try all Writing Problems!

  For Subject courses, you can find the percent each component is weighted on the course's Syllabus.

  For Contest Preparation courses, the Overall Bar is determined 100% by your Challenge Problems.

  For the Python Programming Courses, the Overall Bar is determined 32% by your Challenge Problems, 64% by your Writing Problems, and 4% by Class Participation.

• So...what grade am I getting?

  We've set up the system of really colorful bars to communicate with you about when you've demonstrated a particular level of understanding of each topic, and try to motivate you in different ways. We don't want you fretting about percentages or exactly how many points you need to "get an A." Try getting each of your bars to at least green. This indicates that you have a pretty good proficiency with the material. Students who want to go the extra mile can go to blue.

  There is no exact formula for translating Report bars into a grade. The information on all of the reporting tools is generated automatically. We believe that in order to assign a letter grade, we need to look much deeper into your performance. For example, how did you grow over the course? Were you active on the Message Board? How did you interact with other members of the class? Did you help to drive the class discussion? What was the content of the your work on the writing problems?

  At the end of any subject or computer science course, we should be able to provide a letter grade upon request. Visit our Grades and Documentation page for instructions on how to submit a request, as well as more details on our grading philosophy.