Midterm Exam Information -- Fall 2007

General Information

No aids are permitted (not even calculators) during the exam. Also, no electronic devices of any kind are permitted in the exam (discmans, walkmans, mp3 players, phones, pagers, palms, etc.).

A reference sheet will be provided (See Reference Sheet).

You are required to bring your Watcard with you to the midterm exam.

Location

Look up your assigned room, row and seat at https://www.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs-marks/db/examSchedule.

In order to minimize running around and ensure that we have enough exams in every room, it is important that you end up in the correct location. We will have lists posted in each room in case you can't remember your assigned location.

Getting Help

The course staff is available during their regular Consulting Hours in MC 4065 and will also take appointments.

Instructors are available during their regular Office Hours.

Review Session

There is a review session scheduled for Sunday, October 21, 2007 from 2-4pm.

Here are the questions for the midterm review session. If you would like help with answering any of the questions please come see a tutor or a professor. Rooms will be announced as soon as the bookings are confirmed.

Topic Coverage

Up to and including week 5 of the timetable.
This includes the material covered in the readings, the lectures, the labs, and the assignments.

Types of Questions

There will be a combination of question types. You can expect:

You will have to be able to write, read and trace code. You should be able to recognize whether or not code will compile, run, and produce output or an error. You will have to write code in the appropriate Java syntax, though we will be reasonably lenient with the occassional missed semicolon or other similar errors.

You are expected to be familiar with the classes you have used often (Board, Scanner, String). We will provide a reference sheet for anything else we think you will need.

Practice Materials

Hints and Tips

  1. Read the entire exam before working on questions. Budget your time carefully so that you have enough time to complete the exam.

  2. The midterm will contain easier questions and harder ones. Do the easier ones first, and use the mark allocations for each question as a guide.

Preparing for a CS Exam

Students in CS 133 frequently ask how to prepare themselves for an exam. Often they think that reading over course notes, lab notes and assignments will prepare them properly. The CS 133 staff think otherwise. Simply reviewing material makes it too easy to be lulled into complacency. Our premise is that working through examples gives you a much better idea of which topics you are familiar with and which ones need more work.

One suggestion is to set up a study group in which each of you makes up a couple of questions that the rest of the group answers.

The textbook also contains a number of questions that are good for practicing.

The bottom line is that the best way to study is to write programs.

Practice. Practice. Practice.