Midterm 1 Logistics
This post contains important information about Midterm 1.
Date, Time, and Location
The exam is scheduled for Friday, May 22nd from 1-3PM in 1690 BBB. Please arrive a few minutes early so that we can start on time.
Students with SSD accommodations will start at 1PM and finish according to their accommodations (e.g. 4PM with 150% accommodations).
Content and Format
The Midterm Exam will content from:
- Chapters 1-4 of the course notes
- Lectures 1-5
- Homeworks 1-4
- Labs 1-5
Lecture 6 (the day before the exam) will half consist of new material not on the exam, and the other half will be a review of the material on the exam.
The exam will be a 120 minute, on-paper, closed-notes exam, with the exception of one double-sided 8.5x11” notes sheet that you handwrite yourself (no typing, no writing on an iPad and printing, no screenshotting lecture slides, etc.). We will be checking notes sheets to ensure compliance with this policy. Other than that, you may not refer to any resources or technology during the exam (no phones, no smart watches, no computers, and no calculators).
The exam will contain a mix of multiple choice, short answer, and long form proofs/derivations. You will not be asked to write code on the exam. The format of the exam will be similar to past exams.
Like other College of Engineering exams, we will adhere to the College of Engineering Honor Code. You should take the exam entirely on your own, without the assistance of any other human or technology. After the exam, you should not discuss the exam with anyone who hasn’t taken it yet. Your cooperation in upholding the integrity of the exam is both very important and very much appreciated.
During the exam, we will have a strict no-questions policy. This makes it so that all students have the exact same information about the exam problems, and it avoids disruptions of students climbing over others during the exam to get to the hallway to ask us a question. If an exam problem is unclear or you’re not sure how to proceed, make your best educated guess, and feel free to write on the exam itself any assumptions you made in solving the problem.
Preparation
You’ll want to make sure you have a solid grasp of:
- Everything in the course notes, including all activities
- All past homework and lab problems (see the homepage for all solutions!)
There are three past Midterm 1s available on the Resources tab. Tip: Early on in your study process, take a past exam. Use it to identify any gaps in your knowledge, then review the relevant course notes, labs, and homeworks for those topics, in that order. Repeat for all of the topics you’re not confident with, and then take another past exam.
Note that past Final Exams have relevant content as well, since the Final Exam is cumulative. In addition to these past exams, the Resources tab contains links to other sources of practice problems from other courses I’ve taught and other courses online. It also indexes all past exam problems by topic.
A few other ways to prepare:
- Continue to make office hours appointments to ask questions!
- Post on Slack! If any of the solutions to past homeworks, labs, or exams are unclear, let us know on Slack. We can update them if need be.
- Come to Lecture 6 (the day before the exam) with questions to ask; we’ll have time to take up anything you’d like.
Best of luck studying!