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Academic affairs

The syllabus quiz

Why many first-year and gateway courses open with a low-stakes quiz on the syllabus, and how to ace it.

Home / The syllabus quiz

Why instructors do it

‘I didn't know late work was capped at 50%’ is a conversation nobody wants in week ten. The quiz front-loads the policies so a dispute later starts from ‘you were told,’ and it signals that the syllabus is a document you're expected to use, not skim.

The habit it builds

Treat every syllabus as a reference: note the exam dates in your calendar the first week, know the late and attendance policies, and find the lines about accommodations and academic integrity. The quiz is a nudge to do that once per course.

In and around Porter Falls

Curriculum decisions at Porter run through the departments that meet in Founders Hall and the Applied Arts Building, then to Faculty Senate, then to the Provost in Millwright Hall. The pace is deliberately slow and the review calendar is published.

The practical details

Purpose: Makes sure everyone has actually read the policies — late work, attendance, grading, academic integrity, accommodations. Stakes: Small point value, usually retakeable; the real cost is not knowing a policy later. How to ace it: Read the whole syllabus once, then keep it open while you take the quiz. Anything time-sensitive — an accommodation, a booking, a deadline — is worth confirming directly before you rely on it, because the specifics here can change from term to term.

If you have a question

The office behind this is Office of the Provost (Millwright Hall, Room 300). Call (715) 555–0130 or email provost@uwporterfalls.edu during the fall and spring terms, or sign in to MyPorter to send a message or book a time. If it turns out another office owns the question, they will route it rather than send you back to the start.

Fictional information

UW–Porter Falls is a work of parody. Every office, person, building, phone number and statistic on this page is invented; nothing here describes a real institution or a service you can actually contact.