Midterm 1

We will have an evening midterm on October 23rd, from 6:00-7:20 PM. We will be in BAG 131 and BAG 154 and links: BAG 131 and 154.

We will share instructions for which room to report to closer to the exam date.

But what happens if...

I have a conflict with the exam time that I know about right now? Fill out this form by Friday October 17th.
I'm sick? Let Robbie and Miya know (before the exam begins); 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 Robbie and Miya know 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).

Exam Details

In-Exam Resources

The exam is closed-book and individual.
We will provide you with the Propostional Equivalences sheet and the Inference Rules sheet
Additionally, we will allow each student one 8.5x11-inch-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 set up so that you should not need a calculator.

Topic Coverage

What you will see:

You are responsible for topics covered through lecture 10 (The first number theory lecture); that was the lecture on Wednesday October 15th.
There will be at least one sybmolic proof (a proof using either the inference rules or the propositional equivalences).
There will be at least one English proof.
Other "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.

Timing Logistics

You will have 80 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. But the time limit is still there (and there will be a time limit on future exams as well)! We strongly recommend taking the practice 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.

Preparing

Homework 3 Feedback

Feedback on what you've done right/wrong on previous problems is one of the best ways to learn. You'll have HW1 and HW2 feedback and solutions well before the exam.

We intend to return HW3 feedback to you by Tuesday October 21st; we will release solutions to HW3 in lecture on Monday October 20th.

Practice Sessions

Section on the day of the midterm (Oct 23) will be run office-hours-style (i.e., you can come with questions which TAs will answer). We will give everyone section participation credit for that section.

Practice Materials

In past quarters, 311 had one big midterm (usually in week 7) instead of two midterms; that means we don't have an old exam to show you that's a perfect match to what you will se on your exam.

We wrote a practice exam with solutions, that we think should be helpful. You should not take this exam as a guarantee of what you will see on your exam (the exact number and types of problems may be different), but it should give you a sense of what we think is a reasonable length. Many of these problems are drawn from old midterms, but some are new for this practice. We strongly recommend taking this exam under test conditions (e.g., print it out on paper, do it with just a reference sheet and one page of notes, time yourself) so that you have a sense of whether you're working at about the right speed.

Below are old midterms for 311. Since these were given later in the quarter, your exam will not cover many of the topics shown here. You still might find it helpful to pull out particular problems (e.g., you can do the translation exercises).