cs240e, Winter 2023: Testing/Exams

Final

Date:	Saturday, April 22
Time:	4:00PM - 6:30PM
Location/Seating:	You will be assigned a seat and you must use your assigned seat (the exam will be pre-stamped with your name). Look up your assign seat here.
Reference Sheet (will be provided in exam):	reference sheet
Allowed Aids:	Only the reference sheet which will be provided in the exam. No calculators allowed.
Bring:	Pens, pencils and eraser. A pen is needed for signatures (a signature list that the proctor will bring around and your signature on the front page of the exam). The exam will be hand-written on paper; you are encouraged to use pencils (bring more than one in case one breaks) so you can erase in case of minor errors. If you choose, you are also allowed to use any kind of pen to write your answer as long as it will be visible on the scan; do not use colours other than blue or black. You must bring your Watcard (the actual card with the photo; the PDF-version is not enough). If you do not have this yet, bring two pieces of photo-ID. You are permitted to bring in a clear water bottle, but remove its label. Food is not allowed.
Coverage:	The exam covers everything that was covered in class, with a strong emphasis on post-midterm material Modules 6 - 10. Be aware that we have not been following the course notes exactly. Anything that was not covered in class will not be asked about on the exam. Specifically excluded topics: Optimal binary search trees 2-competetiveness of the MTF-heuristic Analysis of hashing with uniform probing Details of Rabin-Karp run-time Algorithms to find prime numbers Group theory results Memorizing Morse code or ASCII Fast Fourier Transform Suffix arrays The focus is less on memorizing and more on understanding and applying the concepts you learned in the course. Also, for any question where you do not know the exact formula or details of a pseudocode, you can state your assumptions with your solution, and as long as this does not simplify the question it will not be punished. You will not be asked to reproduce any proofs done in class. But you should understand the ideas behind them and apply those ideas to simple situations. You do not need to know any specific details about C++; if we ask you to give code then pseudocode will suffice.
Question-types:	The final will be similar in layout to the midterm.
Final review session:	3:00pm - 4:30pm on Monday, April 17 (will be streamed on Teams and recorded, solutions will be posted) Practice final: see @227 on piazza [added April 13] Questions PDF: questions [added April 16]
Office hours:	Tom: Wednesday, April 12 from 10:30am to 11:30am (in-person + online) Friday, April 14 from 10am to 11am (in-person + online) Wednesday, April 19 from 10am to 11am (in-person + online) Friday, April 21 from 10am to 11am (in-person + online) [typo fixed April 16] Additional office hours available by appointment
What to expect during the exam:	We will follow the University Policies, guidlines, and Academic Regulations for Assignemnts, Tests, and Final Exams as well as the Registrar's office instructions for Final examinations Arrive no sooner than 20 minutes before the start of the exam. Masks must be worn at all times. Only the South and West entrances of PAC are open. All students must remain for the first hour. Students who arrive more than an hour late will not be admitted. No food or drink (with the exception of water in a clear bottle with no label). Should you require short nutrition breaks, you must contact us before the exam. Furthermore: Students will be let into the room 5-10 minutes before the exam starts, depending on when set-up is ready. Do not enter the room until proctors let you in. Before entering, verify on the posted (outside the room) seating list (by ID #) that this is the correct room for your exam. Also note the seat (given as row and column when facing the front of the room). Once let into the room students may not leave the room until the exam is over or unless being escorted to the bathroom (i.e. before entering, go to the washroom). Students may arrive up to an hour late but no extra writing time will be given: everyone ends at the same time. Find your exam (it will have your name and photo on it) Put your photo-ID WatCard, pens, pencils, erasers on the desk. Put your backpack, bags, hats, etc. under the desk , closed, clear from the aisle and out of sight. No electronic aids allowed: All laptops, cell phones, smart watches etc. must be out of reach. Read the instructions on the first page and sign in the box on the front page in pen Listen to instructions from the proctor(s). Do not start until the proctor tells you to. During the exam, a proctor will come around with a signature (attendance) list that you must sign in pen. Proctors will also look at your WatCard to verify you are writing the right exam and check that you have signed the front page of the exam. Raise your hand if you think there is an error on the exam, or if you have need for a washroom break, or if you want to leave early, or if you need to get something out of your bag/backpack after the exam has started. You may not leave during the first hour of the exam or within the last 10 minutes. Stop writing at the end when the proctor tells you to. Failure to stop when told to will lower your mark. Remain seated, until the proctors have collected all exams and tell you that you may leave. Once you are allowed to leave at the end, leave the room promptly.
Incompletes:	Students who cannot attend or finish the final exam due to illness or other reasons beyond their control must follow the procedure to request an Incomplete (INC). Requests will be not be granted automatically.
Grades and exam viewing:	Grades (for the entire course, not just for the final) will begin to appear on Quest on April 29, 2023. Course personnel is not allowed to share grade information with you before this day. Final exams are primarily diagnostic tools for evaluating how well the course material was learned and understood at the end of term and are not intended as learning tools. As such, solutions are not provided and the marked exam is not released to students. Exam viewing sessions will take place at the beginning of the next term. Please contact Karen Anderson at the beginning of Spring 2023 if you would like to view your exam.

Midterm

Date:	Thurs. March 2, 2023
Time:	4:30PM - 6:20PM
Location/Seating:	You will be assigned a seat and you must use your assigned seat (the exam will be pre-stamped with your name). Look up your assign seat here.
Reference Sheet (will be provided in exam):	reference sheet
Allowed Aids:	Only the reference sheet which will be provided in the exam. No calculators allowed.
Bring:	Pens, pencils and eraser. A pen is needed for signatures (a signature list that the proctor will bring around and your signature on the front page of the exam). The exam will be hand-written on paper; you are encouraged to use pencils (bring more than one in case one breaks) so you can erase in case of minor errors. If you choose, you are also allowed to use any kind of pen to write your answer as long as it will be visible on the scan; do not use colours other than blue or black. You must bring your Watcard (the actual card with the photo; the PDF-version is not enough). If you do not have this yet, bring two pieces of photo-ID. You are permitted to bring in a clear water bottle, but remove its label. Food is not allowed.
Coverage:	The midterm covers everything up to and including Chapter 05 that was covered in class (up to an including the last lecture before reading week, on Feb. 16) [added Mar. 1]. Be aware that we have not been following the course notes exactly. Anything that was not covered in class will not be asked about on the exam. The proctors have not seen the midterm and cannot answer questions about coverage. Students are not expected to be familiar with bonus questions from assignments, except for Assignment 1. In general, we don't answer questions like "Do we need to know about XYZ for the midterm?" or "Do I have to memorize ABC?". You must use your judgment in deciding what to study. (Also consult the helper sheet; there is no need to memorize anything that is on it.) We will say, however, that the focus is less on memorizing and more on understanding and applying the concepts you learned in the course. Also, for any question where you do not know the exact formula or details of a pseudocode, you can state your assumptions with your solution, and as long as this does not simplify the question it will not be penalized. You will not be asked to reproduce any proofs done in class. But you should understand the ideas behind them and apply those ideas to simple situations. You do not need to know any specific details about C++; if we ask you to give code then pseudocode will suffice.
What to expect at the exam and after:	Students will be let into the room 5-10 minutes before the exam starts, depending on when set-up is ready. Do not enter the room until proctors let you in. Before entering, verify on the posted (outside the room) seating list (by ID #) that this is the correct room for your exam. Also note the seat (given as row and column when facing the front of the room). Once let into the room students may not leave the room until the exam is over or unless being escorted to the bathroom (i.e. before entering, go to the washroom). Students may arrive up to an hour late but no extra writing time will be given-everyone ends at the same time. Find your exam (it will have your name and photo on it) Put your photo-ID WatCard, pens, pencils, erasers on the desk and put your backpack, bags, hats, etc. under the desk , closed, clear from the aisle and out of sight. Read the instructions on the first page and sign anywhere on the front page in pen Read the blackboard/whiteboard instructions and listen to instructions from the proctor(s) Do not start until the proctor tells you to. Stop writing at the end when the proctor tells you to. Failure to stop when told to will lower your mark. You may not leave during the first hour of the exam or within the last 10 minutes. At the end, remain seated, until the proctors have collected all exams and tell you that you may leave. During the exam, a proctor will come around with a signature (attendance) list that you must sign in pen. Proctors will also look at your WatCard to verify you are writing the right exam and check that you have signed the front page of the exam. Write your answers legibly and clearly. If graders cannot read your answer, they cannot mark it. Also do not answer close to a paper's edge or faintly since this may not be picked up by the scanning done to upload your exam to Crowdmark for marking (i.e. graders will not see it). Raise your hand if you think there is an error on the exam or if you have need for a washroom break or if you need to get something out of your bag/backpack after the exam has started. Once you are allowed to leave at the end, leave the room promptly. Marking will take a few days. There will be an announcement and post mortem released when grading is ready and you will get an email from the Crowdmark mailer with the link to your marked exam.
Blank Midterm:	Blank Midterm Note that this is intended to give you an idea of the kinds of questions that are being asked; it is not a sample midterm. Not all these kinds of questions will be asked, and there may be some questions that do not fit the blank midterm.
Midterm help session:	Monday, Feb 27, 2:30-4:00pm in EV1 350 practice questions
Office hours:	There will be no lecture on Thursday Mar 2. The ISA is available to hold office hours by appointment during 8:30-10am on Mar 2 (in-person or online). Email cs240e@uwaterloo.ca at least 12 hours in advance to request an appointment.
Postmortem:	midterm-post-mortem
Midterm Remark Requests:	Deadline Thurs. March 23 5:00PM. Re-mark requests will only be accepted using this form (authentication is required to ensure requester is on the classlist).

Crowdmark Note:

We use Crowdmark for grading our exams and distributing midterm results to students. For this course (and many others), Crowdmark associates an exam with a student by their Quest Username (maximum 8 characters) @uwaterloo.ca email. When Crowdmark sends exam results to this email address it is resolved by your Mail Routing Address in WatIAM.