Exams

Exams are written on paper and are closed book and closed notes.  No calculators or other electronic devices are allowed during exams.

Trial and Error Problem Solving and Paper Computer Science Exams

Trial and error is a useful technique when you're stuck and don't know how to solve a problem, but if you use only this approach and never actually learn the technique that worked, you will not perform well on the exam.  This is because a paper exam does not offer the opportunity to try something and just see what happens.  The exams in this course will be given in a classroom without access to computers, the web, the online help tools, or your neighbors.  This makes it critical that you learn the problem solving techniques and how to apply them to solve new problems without relying on the vast resources that are available to you while online.  This is harder than you might think.  It is not enough to get a solution to a problem, you must understand how you got the solution and use this technique on the exam problem.

The exams will consist of two parts: a multiple choice part, and a written part.  The multiple choice problems will resemble the types of problems presented in the online quizzes.  Some will be more difficult to solve than others, but all will be worth the same number of points. 

To prepare for a written exam on this material, be sure to write out your solutions to problems on paper before trying them in Maple or MATLAB.  This will be the best test of whether you understand and know all steps to solving a problem or are relying too much on help resources.  Some memorization of the available commands and syntax is required to be able to answer using the techniques presented.  But, we provide a reference sheet for each exam to avoid the most basic memorization tasks.  Focus on what commands were used in the solution and how and when they are used.

Each semester we strive to have a variety of problems covered by homeworks, quizzes, and exams.  It is critical that students understand how to solve the problems presented in the teamlabs, homeworks, quizzes, and modules, without help from friends, or relying too heavily on online tool help systems.  We strive to reward understanding of the techniques used by giving similar but different problems on each exam to see if students know which techniques to apply and how to the techniques learned to the new problems.