April 13, 2005
Final Exam Format
Its a two part exam. The first part has 15 fill-in-the-bubble questions. The second part has 5 short essay answer type questions. There are no point values listed on the exam. The first 15 questions are worth 2 points each. The second set of 5 questions are worth 12 points each. So that's 30 points on the fill-in-the-bubble and 60 points on the essay type questions.
If I were studying for the exam, I would be sure I knew...
- How to solve recurrence relations
- How to do linear programming and what slack form looks like
- How to design algorithms and what the tradeoffs are between the different classes of algorithms we studied.
- How the graph-based algorithms we studied work.
- The stuff on the study lists for the other exams.
Posted by jones at 02:51 PM | Comments (0)
Important typo on the final exam
On the final exam, the question that asks you to put a linear programming problem into "basic form" should read "slack form" (Its problem 18)
Posted by jones at 02:47 PM | Comments (0)
March 23, 2005
Final exam is in the testing center 4/16 through 4/21
It turns out that 312 section 003 meets the requirements for putting an exam in the testing center. Its already scheduled and that's what we will do.
Posted by jones at 02:55 PM | Comments (0)
March 22, 2005
Exam 2 Stats and Curve
The high score on exam 2 was 86/90 so I added 4 points to everyone's grades. With that 4 points, the summary statisitcs on exam 2 are:
Average 81/90
Std Deviation 10.2
variance 104.4
Posted by jones at 02:33 PM | Comments (0)
March 04, 2005
Exam 2 study list
The second exam will run wednesday through Saturday (assuming I can get it changed again, which shouldn't be a big deal). If I were taking the exam, I would study the following topics:
- Master theorem (equation 7.1). While you all are experts in solving recurrences, you still need to know how to use the old standby.
- The prinicple of optimality and how it applies to dynamic programming.
- Understand the dynamic programing algorithms we talked about in class
- Understand why the knapsack dynamic programming algorithm has pseudopolynomial complexity and integer multiplication does not.
- Memory functions
- Know how to translate a symetric two player game into a graph for win/loose analysis.
- Study solutions to homework and study problems.
Same rules as last time: 2 hour time limit, one page of notes.
Posted by jones at 02:59 PM | Comments (0)
February 25, 2005
Exam 1 stats
Average time to complete the exam: 1h 5minutes (max was 1:57 and min was 34 mins).
Average: 84.2
Std Deviaion: 12.94
Variance 167.56
The sample size is pretty small, so you can't conclude too much, but generally speaking, higher scores correlated with spending less time taking the test.
Posted by jones at 02:05 PM | Comments (0)
February 09, 2005
Important Typo on Problem 6
In question 6, "binary search" should be "quicksort". So when you take the test, replace "binary search" with "quicksort" and answer the question.
Posted by jones at 01:25 PM | Comments (0)
February 08, 2005
Test 1 extended to Satuday
I extended the first test to run from Wednesday to Saturday. (Except for Rob, for you its not extended :) just kidding).
Posted by jones at 03:54 PM | Comments (0)
February 07, 2005
Study List for Exam 1
Focus on the reading, lectures, homework and study questions. Make sure you are comfortable with the following topics:
- Big-O notation, what it means and how it relates to emperical performance. The maximum rule and the other "big notations"
- amortized analysis
- How to prove that something is NP-complete and what that means (you won't have to come up with a proof).
- Understand all greedy algorithms discussed in class and used in the homework.
- Parts of a greedy algorithm.
- Understand the design and performance of divide an conquer algorithms like binary search, quicksort and Strassen's algorithm.
- Solving for big-Theta bounds on reccurance relations that can be solved with Equation 7.1
Posted by jones at 02:52 PM | Comments (0)
January 15, 2005
Do you know what you think you know?
There was an interesting article about the relationthip between self-assessment and actual competency. I am not sure about their methods, but the conclusions are interesting--especially in light of our discussion about homework and study problems.
Basically, the more people thought they know, the less they actually konw. And the less people thought they knew, the more they actually knew.
Posted by jones at 08:26 AM | Comments (1)