From: John Lewis Highsmith <jlhighsmth@aol.com>
To: Teacher2Teacher Public Discussion
Date: 2001070515:13:43
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Another way to grade homework

Just one comment, and it about terminology.

One pair of words that is very widely abused is the
percent/percentage.

In your message you referred to the students determining their own
"percentage".  They already have their percentage.  It is the number
for which they recieve credit.  The value they are to determine is
their percent.  

Percent problems have 3 components: a percentage, which is a value to
be compared to a second value, called the base, as a ratio
(percentage/base).  Base and percentage have the same units of
measure, so the result of the comparison, called percent(%)when
multiplied by 100, has no unit of measure.

Let' take a concrete example:  A given paper is worth 50 points and
the student earns 42 points.  The base is the 50 points, the
percentage is the 42 points, and the result is 84%.

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