About Test

Per the course’s syllabus, the test will be released 2023-05-03T00:00:00-04:00 and will be due 2023-05-08T23:59:00-04:00. There are no extensions or late submissions allowed on the test, so please plan accordingly. Gradescope will not accept late submissions, nor will the course accept submissions outside of Gradescope.

You may spend as much time during the test window working on the test as you’d like. You should expect to spend at least a few hours on it, but it will certainly not be designed to take the full block of time you will have.

The test itself will be comprehensive, and all of our seven main topics are fair game to show up. You should expect questions that will require typically longer answers than those we’ve posed in the course’s quizzes so far, and you should also expect questions to generally be more conceptual than mechanical; we are interested in seeing how you might apply the lessons of the course to problems both familiar and unfamiliar! That said, the format of the test will otherwise largely resemble a long quiz, and your answers should remain in general confined to a paragraph, maximum, unless the question otherwise specifies.

During the test itself, it is not permitted to solicit or receive help from any humans (including from the teaching fellows), other than by posting to Ed (which will be restricted to new private, Test-related threads only) for clarifications or administrative questions (we cannot answer content-based questions). This includes, other than use of Ed, a general prohibition on asking any questions in online forums. Collaboration between students is not permitted at all on the test. Violations of these rules will be treated harshly by the course.

It is otherwise open-book, and you may reference any material to craft your answers. Each question will offer a place to cite your utilized sources.

Ultimately, how best to prepare depends on how you learn best. But allow us to recommend that you prioritize your studies by:

  • Reviewing each lecture’s notes.
  • Reviewing each lecture’s source code.
  • Reviewing each lecture’s slides.
  • Watching the review session.
  • Reviewing each project’s specifications, sample solutions, and distribution code.
  • Reviewing each of your submissions to the course’s quizzes and your feedback thereon.
  • Reviewing each of your submissions to the course’s projects and your feedback thereon (we will not have finished grading everyone’s Project 6 before the test).
  • Reviewing each lecture’s video.