GBK Grade Book Program
			       Grade Calculation

Groups of Assignments
---------------------
Assignments are collected into groups, such as Homework, Quiz, Exam, and so
forth.  These are specified by the user in the input data file between the
\begin{assignments} and \end{assignments} delimiters.  Each assignment group has
a group weight which is a positive integer, followed by a percent sign.  You
may think of the weights as percentages, but any positive integers are allowed.
For example,

\begin{assignments}
Homework    1%
Test        1%
Final Exam  1%
\end{assignments}

specifies that the Homework, Test, and Final Exam groups will all have equal
weight 1/3 in the cumulative average.  

As the term progresses, you will enter grades for each assignment.  Total point
values appear as a list following the weight for the assignment group.  For
example, at the end of the semester, the {assignments} section of the input data
file may look like this.

\begin{assignments}
Homework    1%        10  15  25  15  20
Test        1%        40  50  45  
Final Exam  1%        75
\end{assignments}

Student Scores 
-------------- 
Student scores are recorded in the input data file as lists of whole numbers in
the range -1, 0, 2, 3, ... .  The score -1 indicates an excused missed
assignment.  The order of the scores corresponds to the order of the
corresponding assingments in the {assignments} section.

A weight is calculated by gbk for each score as follows:  a score of -1 receives
a weight of zero; a nonnegative score receives a weight equal to the group
weight divided by the group size (where "group" is the group of assignments to
which that score belongs).

Let's call the list of scores (for one particular student) s_1, s_2, ..., s_n,
and let p_1, p_2, ..., p_n be the list of total possible points for the
corresponding assignments, and let w_1, w_2, ..., w_n be the corresponding
weights (note that the weights will not necessarily be the same for each
student).

A cumulative average is then calculated for each student as follows:

              sum of [ s_i/p_i * w_i ]  
cum. avg. =   ------------------------
                    sum of [w_i]

Dropping the worst score
------------------------
After the final exam grade has been entered (gbk detects the final exam
as the first entry in the last group of assignments) gbk recalculates
each student's cumulative average, one time for each nonzero score s_i
for which s_i/p_i <= s_f/p_f (where s_f stands for the final exam score)
by setting w_i equal to zero.  Gbk then chooses the largest of these
cumulative averages.

NOTE (12/2005): You may suppress the low grade drop feature by using a
dummy last assignment with zero weight.  After your last assingment
group, put a dummy assignment line like this.

\begin{assignments}
Homework    1%
Test        1%
Final Exam  1%
DoNotDropLowest 0%
\end{assignments}

The dummy assignment will not appear on the public posted grade reports,
but will appear on the instructor's reports.

If wish to permanently disable the "drop worst" feature, edit the file
GradeBook.java by changing the line

  private static boolean DROP_LOWEST = true;

to

  private static boolean DROP_LOWEST = false;

then recompile the class file with the following command.

  javac GradeBook.java