Exams

Here’s how the prelim and final will work.

General Information

The exam times and locations are listed on the course schedule. Please arrive 15 minutes early to be seated.
You must bring your Cornell ID card to the exam. We may ask to see it to verify your identity. If you have lost your ID card, we will accept a government-issued photo ID and a printout from Student Center showing your photo and 7-digit student ID number.
Exams cover lectures, textbook readings, recitations, and programming assignments. The textbook exercises are an excellent way to study for exams. The book on programming philosophy will not be in scope for the exams.
There will be a TA-led review session to which the entire class is invited.
The exam is “closed book”, but you may bring one 8.5x11” double-sided page of notes. Anything you can fit on that page (by handwriting, .001 font laser printing, etc.) is allowed.
The exam will include an appendix with brief descriptions (names, types, and one-line documentation summary) of any standard library functions that we think you might find useful.

The prelim is offered at 7:30 pm. There will also be a makeup exam at 5:30 pm for those people who have conflicts with the 7:30 exam. You will need to register in advance to take the makeup.
The prelim covers everything that occurs before it on the course schedule.
There will be review sessions in section on the day of and day before the prelim. You may attend multiple review sessions, but students registered in the section receive priority for seats if the room fills up.
Lecture is canceled the morning of the prelim to give you extra time to study.
The only makeup planned for the prelim is the 5:30 offering. No other makeups will be offered unless required by Cornell policy. Religious holidays and SDS accommodations are the usual two reasons that happens. There is no Cornell policy regarding multiple prelims within a 24 hour period.

The final covers the entire course.
The final will be available for download from CMS from 12am-11:59pm on Saturday, May 16th. You must submit it on CMS 24 hours after you check it out, unless you are entitled to extra time.
You will need to upload a document with your solutions to CMS. You can type these out or, if you prefer, write them out by hand and scan them to produce a PDF. Most smart phones can can produce legible scans.
If you think you will have trouble accessing the Internet during the final, please get in touch with Prof. Foster and we will work out alternative arrangements.
The final will have the standard length. That is it will be designed to take around 2.5 hours even though you will have 24 hours to complete it.
The final will be open-{textbook, notes, computer}. The only restriction is that you must not solicit help from any other people in answering the questions. You will be asked to re-affirm the Commitment to Academic Integrity, Equitable Instruction, Trust, and Respect.
There will be a makeup exam offered for anyone who qualifies under Cornell policy for a makeup. The usual reasons for that are a conflicting final exam, or 3+ exams within a 24 hour period. Please note that according to Cornell policy it is the responsibility of the larger course(s) to provide the makeup. So if your conflict is with a course larger than 3110 (unlikely as that might be), you should be taking 3110 as scheduled. You will need to register in advance to take the makeup.

For both the prelim and final, some sample exams and their solutions will be posted about 7–10 days before the scheduled exam date. These sample exams are from past incarnations of the course. Recognize that they do not necessarily reflect the topics we have covered in this semester.
A sample appendix from a previous semester will also be posted, but recognize that the exact content of this year’s might naturally vary.
You are welcome to discuss the problems and your solutions with course staff and other students. But the copyright on these course materials belongs to Cornell, so do not re-post any of the problems or your own solutions in venues outside this course. Doing so might expose you to legal liability.

If you have a letter from SDS recommending that you be granted exam accommodations, those letters are due immediately to the Course Administrator.
Based on the accommodations that are necessary, you will receive an email from the Course Administrator with further details about one week before the scheduled date of the exam.