Final Exam Information

Material covered

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

Exam details

• The exam will be held on Thursday, June 29, during our regularly scheduled time blocks

• The exam will consist of three parts:

  • Part I will contain multiple-choice questions that you must complete.

    We strongly recommend that you bring a pencil and eraser for use on at least this part of the exam. There will be a “bubble sheet” for the multiple-choice answers that will be graded automatically by Gradescope. You will need to ensure that your final answer for each question is the only one that is bubbled, and thus we recommend using pencil so that you can erase answers as needed.

  • Part II will consist of several multi-part problems. The individual parts of each problem will be similar in format and difficulty to the problems on the midterms. You will have some choice in this section (e.g., complete 3 out of 4 problems, or 4 out of 5), and you must clearly specify which of the problems you don’t want us to grade, following the instructions that will be provided on the exam.

  • Part III will consist of a single multi-part problem that you must complete. Parts of this problem may require a bit more work than the typical midterm problem, but they will still be doable in the time available.

• You will have two hours to complete the exam. The questions will be worth a total of 100 points. You should plan on spending approximately one minute per point.

• You may use one 3-inch by 5-inch index card with handwritten notes (both sides). However, you must use a card that we provide. These cards will be distributed in lecture. If you aren’t able to get one in lecture, they will be available in the CS office (MCS 119). Please turn your card in with your exam.

• You may not use any other materials during the exam. In particular, you should turn off and put away cell phones, watches, and other devices.

• You may not leave the exam room and return, so please use the restroom before the exam.

Preparing for the exam

• One way to prepare is to review the lecture materials, labs, 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 Top Hat questions that were assigned for you to complete outside of lecture. They are available as review problems on Top Hat, and you can check whether you obtain the correct answers.

  • redoing the questions posed in lecture and lab

  • the practice problems for the midterm exam

  • 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 VS Code or another programming environment. This will give you an experience that is similar to the one that you have during the exam.

• Feel free to post questions on Piazza (using the final_exam tag) or to email the course account (cs112-staff@cs.bu.edu).