Final Exam Information

Material covered

The exam will cover the entire semester. It will only include topics that we covered in lecture and/or on the assignments.

The final exam will be held from 12:00-2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, May 6th, in the following locations:
- A1 section, all students: CGS 505
- B1 section, all students: CGS 129
- students with accommodations, the exam will be in CDS 948.

Students needing to take the alternate exam will receive an e-mail with additional information.

You must bring your BU ID to the exam, so that we can check it when you turn in your exam.
You will have 120 minutes for the exam. There will be no extra time alloted for the final exam.
You may not use any materials during the exam except for one 3x5 index card with hand written notes. Index cards will be available in the main CS office on the 6th floor in the CDS building.
During the exam you should turn off cell phones and other electronic devices and put them away.
Once you leave the exam room, you may not return, so please use the restroom ahead of time. This will be enforced during the final exam.
The exam will consist of a variety of questions and may include multiple choice, fill in the blanks, code and/or algorithm tracing, as well as short answer questions.
In addition, there will be questions that ask you to write a method, a short program, and/or a Java class, similar to the problems from the homework, but on a smaller scale.
Please note there will be no other exam option other than the main exam and the alternate exam.

One way to prepare is to review the lecture notes, lecture videos, and assignments, and to make a summary of the key points in your own words. “Boiling down” the material in this way is a great way to ensure that you really understand the key concepts.
We also encourage you to do practice problems. Options include:
- redoing the questions posed in lecture.
- redoing the lab exercises and comparing with the solutions provided.
- the practice problems for midterm 1 and midterm 2
- some practice problems on topics covered in the final third of the course.
When working on practice problems, try to come up with your answers on paper, rather than through a trial-and-error approach in your programming environment. This will give you an experience that is similar to the one that you will have during the exam.
Feel free to post questions on Piazza (using the final_exam tag) or to email your instructor.