Concentration: Eliminate errors!

My assignments are designed to help you work on the most important problem at the moment. The
analysis of your papers shows that right now controlling your output for errors is the most important
task. In chapter 5 we concentrate on eliminating errors.

1. Read my questions and prepare tentative answers at home.

2. In the class I highlight the main ideas and answer your questions in a 10-minute intro.
3. You work in teams on the best answers.
4. When all teams have all answers ready we conduct a competition.
a. Questions are assigned to team members randomly. Each student independently writes
an answer for the question assigned.
b. Teams exchange their answers: team 1 with team 2 and team 3 with team 4. Each
member is randomly assigned one paper to check for errors.
c. I select randomly one paper from each team to evaluate. Suppose paper 1 and paper 2
have been chosen from answers of teams 1 and 2, respectively. The grades are
calculated according to the next table.
Paper 1 Paper 2

Team 1 has made n1 errors in its paper Team 2 has made m1 errors in its paper

Team 1 has identified m2 errors in paper 2 and Team 2 has identified n2 errors in paper 2 and
failed to identify m1 − m2 errors failed to identify n1 − n2 errors

Team 1’s grade is Team 2’s grade is

10 − n1 + m2 − (m1 − m2 ) = 10 − n1 − m1 + 2m2 10 − m1 + n2 − (n1 − n2 ) = 10 − m1 − n1 + 2n2

The idea is that a team is punished for the errors it makes, rewarded for the errors it finds in the output
of the rival team and punished for the errors it fails to find in the output of that team. The highest and
lowest possible grades of team 1, depending on how many errors of team 2 it has identified, are,
respectively, 10 − n1 + m1 and 10 − n1 − m1 . By identifying errors in the other team’s work you can make
up for your own errors.

Remark 1. You just indicate errors. I assign points for the errors. In the formula by “errors” I mean points
assigned for the errors. For example, if team 1 has not given any answer, then n1 = 10 .

Remark 2. Nobody except team representatives moves around the class. The team representatives
receive from me question assignments, distribute them among team members, collect the answers, pass
them to the rival team, then collect corrected answers and hand them to me.