Midterm Exam

Logistics

The midterm exam will be on Wednesday February 19th starting at 6 PM. We will be split between a few rooms in PAA (The Physics/Astronomy Auditorium)

You must bring a photo ID with you to the exam.

If you are unable to make that time due to a pre-existing scheduling conflict, please fill out this form by Friday Februrary 14.

If you are sick the day of the exam do not come to the exam. Send Robbie an email so we know why you're not there, and we will schedule makeup exams as needed. Similarly in the event of some other emergency (e.g., a car accident on your way to campus), send Robbie an email and we'll schedule a makeup.

Exam Details

• We will provide a reference sheet with some of the most-used formulas. Here is that reference sheet (We will hand one of these to you with the exam!). This is the same sheet we gave you for quiz 1.
• In addition, you will be allowed one piece of (8.5x11 inch) paper with handwritten notes. You may write notes on both sides of the paper.
• handwritten means either written by you on the piece of paper (with pen or pencil), or handwritten via technology (like an iPad) and printed, without doing anything you could not have done on regular pen and pencil
• For example, you cannot artificially shrink the size of your handwriting with an iPad, but you can use it to make erasing easier/neater.
• Similarly, you could not import pictures from lecture slides, but you can redraw them by hand.
• Scratch paper will be provided.
• You will have 90 minutes to take the exam. The exam will be designed to be completed in about 60 minutes (so only slightly longer than a usual in-class midterm), but you have up to 90 minutes if you need it.

Content/Topics List

You are responsible for all lecture content through Lecture 13 (the second day of the random variable zoo, from Wednesday Feb 5).

Content from lecture 14 (Friday Feb 7, continuous random variables) and after will not be covered on the midterm.

You are also responsible for content on sections and homeworks through section 5 and homework 5.

Exam Policies

You will not be allowed to use a calculator (or other electronic devices) during the exam. We will ensure any math is possible without a calculator.

We do not expect you to simplify final answers (as you don't have a calculator). Similar to homework, answers like 5!*17!/3! or C(5,3) are fine final answers.

Most problems will not require a formal explanation (unlike the homeworks), but explanations will help us award partial credit, so we strongly recommend including (at least) a few words here and there to help with partial credit.

Problems that build on one another (e.g. when the answer from part b is the-answer-from-a / 3!) will allow you to use a variable name to refer to the previous part. Please use that variable name whenever possible. It's faster for you (it's easier to write "a" than "P(54,10)"), and easier for the TA's to grade since they don't have to look up at part a to make sure we don't deduct repeatedly for snowballing-errors).

How should I study?

We strongly recommend taking recent midterm exams under exam conditions (Set a timer for 90 minutes, write out your answers in full, on physical paper, etc)

Extra section problems are an excellent source of practice; be sure to do the problem without looking at the solution first, don't just read the solutions (it's much easier to recognize a correct explanation than to generate one yourself!).

We strongly recommend looking at homework solutions (extras are available in Robbie's office) as modifications of homework problems are a common source of exam problems.

Are there opportunities to review?

Section on February 13th will include about 25 minutes of review time.

There will not be a regular lecture on the day of the midterm (Feb 19th). Staff member(s) (Robbie or some TAs) will be at the lecture halls to answer last-minute questions those days.

Resources

We recommend you take at least one of these old exams (hopefully both!) under exam conditions. These exams were given under the same time constraints as for your exam (i.e., we wrote something aiming for 60 minutes, but gave students 90 minutes).

The 24sp midterm, solutions.

The 23sp midterm, solutions.