Final

The final will be taken in class on the last two days of the quarter: in quiz section from 12:00-1:00 PM on Thursday, August 21st, and in lecture from 12:00-1:00 PM on Friday, August 22nd. You will take the exam in your assigned quiz section room on Thursday, and in our normal lecture room (DEM 102) on Friday.

But what happens if...

I have a hard conflict with the exam time that I know about right now? Email Parker ASAP. Refer to the syllabus to see what types of events can be accomodated as a "hard conflict".
I need to isolate on the day of the exam? Let us know as soon as you can (by email to Parker); we'll schedule you for a conflict exam or find some other way for you to take the exam safely. We will not ask you for proof that you need to isolate. UW has a flowchart to help you determine if isolation is required. If the flowchart does not require isolation, but you still believe it would be wise to isolate, we will still offer a conflict exam. (We will not ask for details on why you are isolating).
I'm sick? We'll schedule you for a conflict exam within a few days of the regular midterm. If you can't make it to a makeup exam (because your illness is extended or you're isolating for longer), we'll discuss other options.
[other emergency] happens Let Parker know (by email) as soon as you know something is going to interfere with your ability to take the exam. These must be significant and beyond your control, but if they are we will accommodate them (an example of this might be you got into a car accident on your way to campus).

The Exam Itself

What to bring

Please bring an ID (Husky card or government-issued photo ID) to the exam.
Don't forget to bring your note sheet (see below)

Timing Logistics

You will have 60 minutes to take each part of the exam; we will design the exam so that with studying and preparation, we would be comfortable giving each part in a 50-minute exam slot.

In-Exam Resources

The exam is closed-book and individual.
We will allow each student one 8.5x11inch-sheet (both-sides) of hand-written notes during the exam.

Hand-written means either really handwritten (like with pencil or pen) OR a facsimile of handwritten, e.g., you hand-wrote on an iPad and printed it out. If you use technology you may NOT use it to artificially shrink your handwriting.

We may remind you of some key definitions, but only when they aren't the main point of the problem

For example, we won't remind you what irregular means when asking you to prove a set is irregular, or what the definition of a subset is when we ask you to prove that one set is a subset of another (those are part of the point of those problems!), but we might remind you of the definition of mod so you remember whether it's n|b-a or n|a-b.

We recommend you consider writing proof templates on your note sheet! We will not provide those templates on the exam.

What could be covered?

Everything from lecture 1 (Intro and Propositional Logic) through lecture 22 (Uncountability) can show up in any way on the exam.
There will be one problem that gives you the option of proving a language irregular (lecture 21) or proving a set is uncountable (lecture 22). It will be your choice which to do.
We will not test you on the lecture 23 (The Halting Problem) content.

Where will the emphasis be?

We will focus on writing problems for aspects of the course that are critical for future classes, and on topics that were covered after the midterm.
You can expect some training wheels questions (e.g., translation, quantifiers, taking contrapositives, etc.)
There will be two induction proofs
Proofs will all be English proofs; we won't ask you to write a proof that just applies equivalences from the big chart (though we can still ask you to take a contrapositive, which might require correctly applying DeMorgan's Law, as an example; we just won't ask you to list the names of the rules).

What won't be covered?

Items we identified as non-testable during the quarter, e.g. the DFA-minimization algorithm won't be covered.
We will not ask you to execute the Euclidian Algorithm
Items not covered at all this quarter may appear in previous quarters (e.g., relations) and therefore are in the practice exams---you are not responsible for this content.

Study materials

The materials below are intended to help you study. They are not a guarantee of what types of questions will be on the exam. Note that prior quarters had slightly different sets of topic coverage, so you may find questions on "non-testable" topics in these materials, and that our final exam will be split into two parts. The materials may also have extraneous old announcements or advice that you can ignore (e.g. the old final incorrectly claims your final will be open-book; yours is still closed-book).

23au final and solutions
24wi final and solutions
22wi final and solutions
22sp final and solutions
You can also go back to prior 311 quarters' webpages to look at their final homework assignments (especially during remote quarters) or their final exam study materials. Much will overlap, but some will be different! To get to old webpages, delete the /23au and everything after from the URL for this page to see the list of old pages.

How should we study?

Take the given final under exam conditions (e.g., timed, not googling or asking others for help) so you get more practice trying to write proofs in a time-constrained way.
Look back old homework problems and solutions.
Look back at old section problems.
When studying, intentionally focus on doing problems not just reading solutions. Reading 20 induction proofs will help you check a given induction proof, but it might not help you much with writing your own induction proof, which is what we'll ask you to do on the exam.
Think carefully about what you want on your note-sheet. With a limited time, you'll want to be able to find what you're looking for quickly, not simply list every fact.

Midterm

Our Midterm Exam: exam and solutions

We will have a midterm in class on Friday, August 1st, from 12:00-1:00 PM. We will be in our normal lecture room in Dempsey Hall: DEM 102.

But what happens if...

I have a hard conflict with the exam time that I know about right now? Email Parker ASAP (before the end of Week 5 (8/27)). Refer to the syllabus to see what types of events can be accomodated as a "hard conflict".
I need to isolate on the day of the exam? Let us know as soon as you can (by email to Parker); we'll schedule you for a conflict exam or find some other way for you to take the exam safely. We will not ask you for proof that you need to isolate. UW has a flowchart to help you determine if isolation is required. If the flowchart does not require isolation, but you still believe it would be wise to isolate, we will still offer a conflict exam. (We will not ask for details on why you are isolating).
I'm sick? We'll schedule you for a conflict exam within a few days of the regular midterm. If you can't make it to a makeup exam (because your illness is extended or you're isolating for longer), we'll discuss other options.
[other emergency] happens Let Parker know (by email) as soon as you know something is going to interfere with your ability to take the exam. These must be significant and beyond your control, but if they are we will accommodate them (an example of this might be you got into a car accident on your way to campus).

Timing Logistics

You will have 60 minutes to do the exam; we will design the exam so that with studying and preparation, we would be comfortable giving the exam in a 50-minute exam slot.
You aren't used to writing proofs in a time-constrained environment! We don't want time pressure to be extremely intense the first time you're having to work quickly, hence the extra time. We will also write the difficulty of the exam with this fact in mind. But the time limit is still there (and there will be a time limit on the final as well)! We strongly recommend taking an old exam under exam conditions (e.g., writing all the answers with pencil and paper; timing yourself) to make sure you're close to the time target.

In-Exam Resources

The exam is closed-book and individual.
We will allow each student one 8.5x11inch-sheet (both-sides) of hand-written notes during the exam.

Hand-written means either really handwritten (like with pencil or pen) OR a facsimile of handwritten, e.g., you hand-wrote on an iPad and printed it out. If you use technology you may NOT use it to artificially shrink your handwriting. Similarly, you may recreate diagrams or lecture slides by rewriting and redrawing them, but may not just copy them using technology and print them.

You are not permitted electronic devices (e.g., calculators) during the exam; the exam will be setup so that you should not need a calculator.
We will not remind you of definitions we've used frequently.

For example, we won't remind you what divides means in a proof about divides (understanding what divides means is part of the point of the problem!), but we would remind you what the "Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic" is if we wanted to ask you about it.

We recommend you consider writing proof templates on your note sheet! We will not provide those templates on the exam.
We will not provide the logical equivalences sheet; we will not ask a question requiring knowing the rule names (for example, we won't ask you to do a symbolic proof), but we might expect you to know rules we've used frequently (like DeMorgan's Law or the Law of Implication); you may write these on your notes sheet if you prefer to have them.

Topic Coverage

What you will see:

You are responsible for topics covered through lecture 14 (Induction Practice); that was the lecture on July 25th.
One of the exam questions will be a proof by induction (either strong or weak induction).
There will be at least one other English proof.
"Training Wheels" questions (translate between English and notation, negate an expression, take a contrapositive, etc.) are likely
There may be other question(s) not fitting into the above list.

What you will not see:

We will not require you to run the Euclidian algorithm. All algebra and other computations will be possible without a calculator. Though, we expect you to be familiar with the application of the Euclidean Algorithm and the GCD facts we used in class.
We will not have any symbolic proofs (applying the logical equivalences). But we may still ask you to negate an expression or take a contrapositive, for example (just not to tell us the names of the steps you used).

Study/Practice Sessions

Section on Thursday July 31st will be a midterm review section.
The lecture slot on Friday July 25th will be dedicated to practicing writing induction proofs.

Practice

We recommend the following resources to study. We think the exams will still be good as practice, but you should not expect your midterm to be an exact match in terms of number/difficulty of problems.

Midterm Retake

Our Midterm Retake Exam: exam and solutions

Students will have an opportunity to take a midterm retake exam to improve their midterm score. The midterm retake will be an exam with identical question types and logistics (timing, note sheet, etc.) as the midterm. If you choose to retake the midterm, your final midterm score per question will be the maximum score you received on that question between the midterm and the midterm retake.

Students will be scheduled to take the midterm retake exam during an one-hour long sessions on either Monday, August 11th, or Tuesday, August 12th, outside of our normal class hours. You must fill out the Midterm Retake Scheduling form on the course Ed board by Thursday, August 7th, at 11:59 pm if you wish to take the retake exam.