Additional feedback on 1-point questions

On 1-point questions in the various assignments of the course (which are by far the most common), you may find that you have not earned credit for your answer and there is no feedback from the staff. This page serves as a source for that supplementary feedback.

There are five common reasons that this might happen, one of which is far more common than the others. Unfortunately we do leave it to you to determine which applies here, though (5) below is a good place to start if you have no idea.

(1) Your answer is incorrect

If, for example, an answer calls for you to describe the runtime of a given algorithm using “big-oh” notation and your answer describes an incorrect runtime (say, you write O(log n) where O(n²) is the right answer), regardless of the explanation you provided, it will be marked wrong.

(2) Your answer violates a length constraint

Some questions have minimum length requirements (“In a short paragraph…”) or maximum length requirements (“In no more than two sentences…”) explicitly spelled out. Answers in violation of those constraints will often be marked wrong.

(3) Your answer answers the wrong question

Sometimes you may either (a) type the answer to the wrong question in the answer box or (b) answer a question entirely different from that which we asked. Do take care to read each question as it is written, give thought to what is being asked of you, and answer that question and only that question.

(4) Your answer is not written in English

While we are aware we may have students from all over the world, the course is taught in English and answers must also be in English.

(5) Your answer is insufficiently explanatory

This is far and away the most common reason to not earn credit for an answer in this course. When writing your answers, you should not leave it to the staff to infer or make a judgment call about what you are trying to say. Your answer should clearly and thoroughly convey the point you’re trying to make, with no ambiguity. As an example, consider the below question, which appears in this course’s first assignment:

In lecture, we only discussed how to represent positive numbers (and zero) in binary, otherwise known as non-negative numbers. Propose how you could represent positive numbers, negative numbers, and zero alike in binary. Keep in mind that the only available symbols are 0 and 1, no minus symbol from our human world! You’re welcome to Google if need be, but first give some thought to the problem with the proverbial engineering hat on!

A very common answer to this question (which receives 0 points) is “I would add an extra bit to represent the sign.” The reasons this answer does not earn credit are:

  • It is not thorough.
  • It is not clear as to where the bit would go (leftmost, rightmost, other?) and indeed if it would matter.
  • It is not clear how you determine whether a number is positive or negative from this sentence alone.

A more comprehensive answer which would earn full credit wouldn’t take much more than this: “I would designate the left-most bit of the number as a representation of the sign of the number; if its value is 0, the following bits represent a positive value; if its value is 1, the number is negative.”

Recall, however, this course’s zero-tolerance policy on plagiarism. Copying and pasting the above example answer as your own in a resubmission is quite likely to get you removed from the course.

In this course, you are always welcome to resubmit assignments if you do not reach the 70% threshold, so you can try a different answer the next time if needed!