Final Exam Information

Material Covered

The exam will cover the entire semester. It will only include topics that we covered in class and/or on the assignments.

Exam Logistics

• The exam will be held on Wednesday August 14/Thursday August 15 during a time block that you must schedule with Examity (our exam proctoring firm).

• This is a live proctored exam; you must take the exam with the proctor or else you will receive a grade of 0 and fail the class.

• Please read the “Proctored Final Exam” and “Exam Rules and Requirements” sections on Blackboard closely, and raise any concerns to the instructor as soon as possible.

• You may not use Spyder or any other Python tools to write, test, debug, or evaluate any code.

• You may not use any AI tools such as ChatGPT for this exam. Any students suspected of using ChatGPT or similar tools will be invited to explain themselves at a hearing before the CAS Academic Conduct Committee.

• You may not use any electronic devices for programming, reference, communication, or web browsing during the exam.

• You may not communicate with anyone during the exam.

• You must not discuss the exam with classmates until AFTER the exam is complete for all students.

  We reserve the right to conduct a separate one-on-one oral examination with any student to verify the student’s understanding of the material.

Exam Details

• The exam will be conducted in the context of Gradescope. We will use the “online quiz” feature of Gradescope, in which you will type all of your answers directly into boxes within the web browser.

  You may use blank scratch paper in preparing your answers to exam questions, but you will type your final responses into Gradescope.

• The exam will consist of three parts:

  • Part I will contain 20 multiple-choice questions that you must complete. Each question will be worth 3 points and there will be only 1 correct answer.

  • Part II will consist of several multi-part problems.
    The individual parts of each problem will be similar in format and difficulty to the problems on the quizzes. You will have some choice in this section (e.g., complete 3 out of 4 problems, or 4 out of 5).

  • Part III will consist of a single multi-part problem that you must complete.
    Parts of this problem may require a bit more work than the typical quiz problem, but they will still be doable in the time available.

• You will have two hours (120 minutes) to write the exam. The questions will be worth a total of 100 points. You should plan on spending approximately one minute per point.

• If you encounter technical errors with Gradescope during the quiz: write your answers on plain paper, scan the pages, and email them to Aaron (azs@bu.edu) as evidence of your work.

• You may use one 8 1/2” by 11” page with handwritten notes (one side).

  • You may write definitions, patterns, or syntax hints.

  • Do not write out any examples other than those from the class videos, Blackboard, or practice problems. If your notes happen to include a solution to any exam problem, it is considered prima facie evidence that you have obtained that solution from another student or online resource (e.g., Chegg, Coursehero, ChatGPT).

    Any cases of suspected academic misconduct will be referred to the CAS Dean of Students and the Academic Conduct Committee.

  • You must scan/submit your notes with your exam.

Preparing for the exam

• The best way to prepare is to review the online modules, mini-lecture videos, and problem sets, and to make a summary of the key points in your own words. “Summarizing” the material in this way is a great way to ensure that you really understand the key concepts.

• We also encourage you to do practice problems. Options include:

  • redoing the examples from the pre-class videos (solving them without reference)

  • the practice problems for each of the quizzes

    • Quiz 1
    • Quiz 2
    • Quiz 3
    • Quiz 4
    • Quiz 5

  • the following sets of additional practice problems:

    • coding bat - practice problems on a variety of topics from the first half of the course.

    • additional practice problems: tracing, references, recursion, loops, 2-D lists, and object-oriented programming.

  When working on practice problems, try to come up with your answers on paper, rather than through a trial-and-error approach in Spyder or in another programming environment. This will be give you an experience that is similar to the one that you have during the exam.

• Feel free to post questions on Piazza (using the final_exam tag).