Exams

Midterm

Logistics

The midterm exam will be on Thursday May 14th starting at 6 PM. We will be split between two classrooms.

Bagley 131 - if your last name starts with the letters A-P
John 102 - if your last name starts with the letters Q-Z

You must bring a photo ID with you to the exam. We will be checking those before or during the exam.
Please be at your exam location no later than 5:50pm.
Other than that, the only thing you should bring are pencils/pens and an eraser.
In particular, you are not allowed to bring your own cheatsheet.
Except for last minute problems such as illness or emergency, all makeup arrangements have already been made.
In the event of an unavoidable last minute problem, send email to Anna before the exam starts and we will do our best to set up a makeup exam.

Exam Details

We will provide a reference sheet with some of the most-used formulas. Here is the current version of that reference sheet (We will hand one of these to you with the exam!).
Scratch paper will also be provided.
If you have something you really want me to add to the reference sheet, send me a note with that information and I will consider adding it. (No promises.)
You will have 90 minutes to take the exam. The exam will be designed to be completed in about 50-60 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 up to and including the end of the discussion of the discrete zoo (so up to and including lecture 14, Wednesday, April 29).
Content from lecture 15 (Friday May 1, continuous random variables) and later will not be covered on the midterm.
You are also responsible for all content on concept checks 1-13, sections 1-5 and problem sets 1-5.

Exam Policies

You will not be allowed to use a calculator (or other electronic devices) during the exam. We will ensure any math is straightforward 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.
There will be several multiple choice, True/False or fill in the blank problems. No partial credit will be possible on these. For the remaining problems, we 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.
Under no circumstances are you to have a phone, a smart watch or any other electronic device in your vicinity during the exam. Those should be put away in your backpack before you enter the room where the exam will take place. If we do notice any such device during the exam, we will automatically give you a 0 on the test.

How should I study?

Write out your own cheatsheet! This will help you organize your understanding, even if you will not use it during the exam.
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). Use the above reference sheet, but do not use any other resources.
Section problems, including those not explicitly covered during section, 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 going through all homework solutions: modifications of homework problems (and of section problems) are a common source of exam problems.

Are there opportunities to review?

Here is a practice midterm (the one I gave the last time I taught this class). Please take this practice midterm before section on May 7 (under exam conditions). Your TA will go over the solutions during section that day and I will also be posting solutions to this one on May 7. (Note that students were given 50 minutes to do this one; it was given in class.)

Anna will do midterm review in class on the day before the midterm (May 13), and go over more practice problems.

Resources

In addition, we recommend you take at least one of these older exams under exam conditions. The following three were given in class, with students having 50 minutes.

You can find 4 more practice exams at the bottom of this page. Those were written aiming for 50-60 minutes, but students were given more time: 80 or 90 minutes. Note that all of the following were given by other instructors.

Final important reminder

Don't forget that we require a certain minimum performance on the exams to achieve various grades in this class. See the syllabus for the details on that. You will not be able to pass this class (respectively do well in this class) without doing acceptably on the exams (respectively doing well on the exams).

Final Exam

The final will be on Wednesday, June 10 from 8:30am - 10:20am.