The emphasis on the midterm will be on material covered in the lectures, online Examples, and in the reading and programming assignments.
Expect about 30 questions divided into three short sections: multiple choice, short answer, and coding. Because you may not be accustomed to coding in a short amount of time, you should practice writing out source code solutions to some of the exercises in the text. Partial credit will be given.
The coverage will include material from Chapters 1--6, and 9 of the course text by Savitch. Selected topics from other chapters may appear, but only to the brief extent that they have been covered in lecture or discussion section. Emphasis in the multiple choice questions will be on terminology and concepts discussed in detail in lecture, including (but not limited to) the following:
Please bring a photo-ID and a pen or pencil, but no calculators or computers. You are allowed one two-sided sheet of notes. Please be prepared to provide your student ID, your TA's name, and your discussion section ID and meeting time. If you attend a different section from the one in which you are enrolled, specify which is which on your exam cover. Exam paper and scratch paper are provided; please do not bring your own.
There is a strictly enforced time limit for the exam. The actual time allowed is about 1 hour and 45 minutes but depends on how soon everyone can be seated correctly. The time allowed is the same for everyone who arrives on time. People arriving late will have to be seated by a proctor and therefore may lose even more time. When the end of the exam is announced, you must stop writing immediately to avoid a 10% penalty. A couple of spoken time warnings will be given. When the exam is over, please do not talk at all until either all exams have been collected or you have left the exam room. Thank you.
Every effort is made to make the exam questions clear, correct, and straightforward. However, minor errors are sometimes detected during the exam. Should this occur, the appropriate correction will be written on the board at the front of the room, possibly (but possibly not) accompanied by some spoken announcement. On very rare occasions, a question is thrown out entirely. Do not spend much time on any question you don't understand or you think might be in error. Do ask a proctor for clarification if you need it. Proctors cannot give hints, but they may be able to clarify question phrasing.
If you don't understand a question, and the proctor's explanation doesn't help, you may still try for partial credit. Write "not clear" beside the question and instead attempt to solve what you believe may be the intended or most appropriate related question. Be sure to say what you are solving and why you think the change of question is necessary. In many cases, solving a somewhat simplified version of the problem will still earn significant partial credit.
A more elaborate description of the exam questions will be provided for you on the exam cover, which you will fill out before starting. It is vital that you try all problems before getting bogged down in any particular one. The problems are not necessarily in increasing order of difficulty. Sometimes the easiest question is the last one.
Please arrive 5 - 10 minutes early. Seating is assigned in alternating columns.
Special precautions are taken during the exam to try to prevent cheating. For example, a proctor may wish to examine your sheet of notes or photo-ID, or you might be asked to move to a different seat during the exam. Such requests are made for a variety of reasons and do not necessarily mean suspicious behavior by the person(s) being questioned or moved. These disturbances will be minimized; your cooperation is greatly appreciated. You can help further by keeping any additional items brought with you in a bag under your seat rather than in the seat next to you.
Scores will be made available on the my.ucla web site as soon as they have been calculated. A distribution of midterm scores will be posted in the form of a stem-and-leaf plot (a fancy kind of histogram) a few days after the exam.
Strict rules are enforced for regrades. Because errors in grading and/or point tabulation sometimes occur, you will be given an opportunity to examine your graded exam in the presence of your TA for such errors. Once the exam leaves your TA's presence, no regrade is possible. If you need more time to evaluate the grading, please ask your TA for a photocopy of the exam or for a private appointment.