Exam: Wednesday May 8, 1:30-2:20pm
Download your midterm exam here: (link removed)
CS 278 Midterm Exam
Please have this downloaded and ready on your computer prior to the exam.
Here are some helpful notes about the midterm - we will announce them at the start of the exam, but you should read these now if you can:
We ask that you turn off the internet and all notifications during the exam as the exam is closed book/notes. However, you need the internet to submit the exam, so once the exam is done and you click submit, you should turn the internet back on to submit the exam. Please screenshot or write down the confirmation code once you submit the exam - do not leave the exam room until you get that confirmation code.
The Bluebook screen will exit once you have completed the exam and want to submit it. However, DO NOT exit out of the BlueBook screen during the exam as it will flag the exam for a possible honor code violation. You can exit though when you are ready submit since you will need to turn your internet back on.
There are 12 questions divided into 4 “problems” on the exam. This was so we could give you tab functionality in the exam to quickly move between Easy, Medium, Hard and Staff questions using the “Problems” tab on the top. Be sure to answer all 12 questions before submitting.
Please remember to format your answers in the text box by using the return key. Aim to keep your answers within the dash margin line on the right hand side. You can just hit return when you get close to that line to keep it in the box area.
Additional tips to help you succeed:
Congrats on crowdsourcing the exam! Your questions make up 75% of the Exam. We took 9 questions of the exam verbatim from the leader test bank. We only had 1 overlap where a student has both an original question and a remix question on the exam since it was too hard to balance and continuously randomly sample questions to make sure there was no overlap. This means however, that 17 of you will be able to skip at least one question on the exam.
If you notice your sunetid under the question, just type: "My question." Then proceed to skip answering it. Only do this if your sunetid appears. If you think we made a mistake and that you should be awarded credit, please still answer the question and let us know after the exam. If we think you are correct, then we will disregard your answer and give you the points. However, it is safer that you have some answer in case there is a mistake and we do not award you free credit.
Move quickly. 50 minutes goes by fast. Most questions are very targeted in the sense that there are right answers, so you don’t want to get boggled down if a question stumps you. The exam autosaves so you can move around in the tabs easily. We won’t be judging your grammar/spelling - we will just be looking for the correct answers, and when it asks for an explanation/justification, that as well.
The exam has 12 questions. Please do not submit the exam until you have attempted all 12 questions. Three questions are in each of the 4 problem sections.
We provided the original lecture numbers that the source material for the question came from. These are only meant as hints and are not meant to confine your answers. If you do not specifically draw your answer from that lecture, and we deem that the answer is still correct, you will still get credit.
Good luck!
The midterm exam will be administered on a digital tool called BlueBook. Please make sure to download and install BlueBook on your laptop before the exam. If you do not have access to a laptop for the exam, please let the TAs know ASAP.
You can download the BlueBook program through the following links. If you used BlueBook previously, please make sure you have version 1.1.0 which is the version here:
Note: If you're using a Mac and you get an error saying that the Disk Image is from an unidentified developer, don't panic! Simply open up the Mac-BlueBook-1.1.0.dmg file in your finder, and right click it and select 'open'. The same window will pop up, but this time you'll have a chance to open it anyway. On Windows, If you get a message that says, "Windows protected your PC," you can click on "More info" and then "Run anyway".
Here is a practice exam that can be run on BlueBook so you can test your computer: demo_exam.json. If your web browser opens the file, you should right click and "Save As" and put in a location where you can find it later. Once you have downloaded it, open BlueBook and find the file (demo_exam.json) and open it. The password is demo. Please note: this is a sample demo that was given out in CS110 (the questions will not make any sense in this class), but we are providing it for you so you can upload a file and see that everything works.
Feel free to start the demo and play around with the interface a bit. One thing to keep in mind is that there will be no coding on the exam, it will all be plain text. When using plain text in the interface, you need to hit return when you want to move to a new line. Please use the return key to keep your answers in the box area provided. You will not be able to submit this exam, and for the actual midterm, you will have it in class.
If there are any problems, please email all the TAs ASAP
Before the exam, you will receive an email to download the actual exam onto your computer so that you have everything ready by the time the exam starts.