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Exam preparation

The information below serves as help for the exam preparation

Lärare Viktoria Fodor skapade sidan 21 maj 2014

Viktoria Fodor flyttade sidan från Introduction to Computing Systems Engineering (EP1200) 21 maj 2014

kommenterade 21 maj 2014

It does not seem reasonable to have an exam consisting of 6 problems (along with some minor theory related questions) that are on the same level of difficulty as the projects given throughout the course. They were each designed to take about 10 hours of work (from two students) and most of them were composed of 1-4 of assignments the same size as the ones presented in this mock exam. Given that the problems presented on the exam are roughly this size, that would make for about 30 hours of work.* Someone should probably look into this.

*(Projects designed for 10 hours of work from 2 people means 20 hours for a single student. Given that a typical project was split into 4 minor problems, roughly the same size as the ones presented in the exam, in which there are 6 of these problems, that makes for about (20/4)*6 hours of work.)

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Lärare kommenterade 22 maj 2014

Come on, if you have done the projects then you know how to solve these problems. The exam is to verify that you have been learning through the course. 

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kommenterade 22 maj 2014

I understand what you are saying. However, difficulty is not the issue. It is the time required to solve these kinds of problems. Surely you must understand yourself that programming takes time, even when you roughly know what you are doing and even though you are good at it. The fact that this is under the immense time pressure of 4 hours does not help most students. 

There are other ways to verify that students have been learning throughout the course (the seminars should have already tested our programming skills, surely you must agree to this). Why pick the most time consuming way? Theory questions that are not as time consuming are an alternative, they are in the exam. Why not elaborate on them? It has been clear throughout the course that students that have studied the book carefully are capable of completing the programming assignments, why not just check that students know the theories? (When completing the assignments comes implicitly from understanding the theory.)

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Lärare kommenterade 22 maj 2014

You will be given individual grades even though the projects were done in teams of two to three persons. The quiz results are not enough to differentiate you and hence we have decided to have a final exam as confirmation of each student's individual learning. 

The grade should reflect all parts of the course, both knowledge of theory and acquired skills; the exam is therefore composed of different types of problems. 

The programs are actually short, so the time to write the code should not be an issue. However, you need to start preparing for the exam. 

 

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kommenterade 22 maj 2014

Agreed, but as of now the exam consists of 1/7 knowledge of theory and 6/7 programming skills. It would seem fair to at least even the exam out a little, making the mix of theoretical knowledge and acquired skills more even. Right?

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Lärare kommenterade 22 maj 2014

I do not know how you assess that since most problems test both. This practice exam reflects what we expect you all to know from the course given what you have read in the book, been taught in the short lectures and have learned by working on the projects.   

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Viktoria Fodor redigerade 27 maj 2014

The information below serves as help for the exam preparation


* Exam handbook: extracts from the course book with tables of chips, Assembler instructions, VM commands and Jack grammar. These pages will be attached to the exam problems.
* Practice exam
* Solutions for the practice exam - will be attached week 22