Exams
Traditionally, 1730 has not had exams. Starting this year, we are going to have two exams.
Why Exams?
First, you learn better. Education research has documented well the “testing effect”, which is that tests are useful not only for assessment but also for learning.
As we have liberated course policies to allow for the use of tools like Copilot (which, realistically, students were going to use anyway), we do need to make sure that our grades still mean something.
Dates
First exam: Monday, October 7
Second exam: Wednesday, November 13
Please make sure you are able to attend class on these days!
Content
The exams in this course will be very simple. There will not be any complicated, open-ended questions. Rather, the questions will ensure you have understood basic factual material you have seen so far in the class. For instance, you will be shown simple programs and asked to predict what they produce as output. If you have actually attended class, done the homeworks, and understood the work you turned in, you should be able to coast through the exams.
The second exam will naturally be a bit more challenging than the first exam. We will have covered many more topics in the course, and done a much more diverse set of assignments, by then. Therefore, you will have more material to revise.
If you have any accommodations that are relevant to the exam, please work out the details with Shriram at least one week before the exam.
Finally: you are not allowed to make copies of the exam in any way, nor upload it anywhere. Doing so would violate the Copyright policy.
Grading
You will receive a letter grade for your exam work.
Each part of each task will be designated in “letter grade” (LG) units (e.g., a question might be 0.25 LG). We just add up all your correct answers (a small number of questions might have partial credit, but most have a striaghtforward “right answer”), and that’s your letter-grade for the exam. We won’t have a “D” grade, so the first full letter-grade you get takes you up to C, etc. Thus, the whole exam weighs 3 LG. There are no “partial letter grades”, so we will round down, i.e., you only get letter-grades that you earned fully through exam performance.
The exam will show weights for every individual sub-problem. Thus, you might find problem 3 worth 1 LG, with problems 3.1 and 3.2 each marked as 0.5 LGs. That doesn’t mean problem 3 is now worth 2 LG; instead, it shows how problem 3’s 1 LG is divided up. Furthermore, you may see 3.2.1 marked 0.3 LG and 3.2.2 marked 0.2 LG. This explains how 3.2’s 0.5 LG are split. The weights of all sub-problems will add up to the weight of the immediate super-problem.
You cannot get a course grade more than two letter-grades better than your first exam grade.
You cannot get a course grade more than one letter-grade better than your second exam grade.
You must pass (i.e., get at least a C) on both exams to pass the course. (This is even if you take the course S/NC.)
Logistics
The exams will be held in person.
The exams will take place during class time.
Please make sure you have access to your Banner ID (which looks like B12345678). This is not your Brown ID number, which is on your ID card. And yes, this is the opposite of what we said for the first exam!
You must do the exam on paper.
Because the questions are very simple, the exams will be closed-“book”. You may, however, bring up to one sheet of paper (double-sided) of notes, which you can consult during the exam. You may not consult any other sources.If you have registered as visually-impaired, you can have up to two sheets.
The paper will contain boxes where you should write your answer. Write neatly, and stay within any boxes provided. The boxes are sized to be an upper-bound on how much we expect you to write. Gradescope uses computer vision to identify the boxes to simplify grading, so it’s especially important you stay within their bounds. Time is limited; you never need to be verbose.
We will not supply writing implements. Please bring your own. Bring backups.
Please make sure you write with a dark pen (recommended: blue or black). If you write with a light pen or pencil, it will often not be picked up by the scanner, and will appear illegible (or even blank) when we view it, which will make it impossible to grade.
No electronics should be present. The only exception is if you have an accommodation that you have discussed with me for which you will do the exam on your computer. If you do this, the exam should be the only thing on screen, and it should cover your whole screen.
We will use CIT 368 and the third floor atrium (which will be reserved for the exams). Students will be expected to space out enough between these two areas to not be able to see each others’ work.
You will have 22 minutes for the exam. Those who have an accommodation that needs double time will therefore have 44 minutes, which still fits within the class period.
The exam will begin at 11:05, giving us 5 minutes to get everyone settled in and the exam work handed out. But please arrive by 11am, not at 11:05! Those five minutes are meant for logistics, not a chance for you to arrive late. The exam will begin at 11:05 whether you are here or not, and end between 11:27 and 11:49 (depending on accommodations) irrespective of when you began it.
We require you to:
start by 11:15 at the latest;
stay until at least 11:15 even if you finish early.
That is, nobody can leave until the latest starting time; nobody can begin after people are eligible to leave.
If you have questions about any details, please get them clarified on EdStem well before the exam dates.