Midterm Review

Motivation

The midterm exam is intended to gauge your comfort and facility with the content from the first half of the course. Since the course topics build on each other, confirming you have a good grasp of the foundations and identifying which gaps to shore up now puts you on a solid path to be ready for what comes next.

Logistics

  • The exam is Tuesday October 28th from 7-9pm.
  • Take a look at where you should go for your exam here!
  • Students with special circumstances (SCPD, OAE, athletic conflicts) will receive an email from Head TA Yasmine with your arrangements. If you do not receive an email by the end of Tuesday Oct 21, reach out to Yasmine immediately because your situation is not in our records, and room reservation and staffing arrangements often do not allow us to accommodate late requests.
  • This exam is on paper, using pen/pencil. You will write your answers directly on the paper exam.
  • The exam is closed-book and closed-device.
    • We will provide a reference sheet to jog your memory about the Stanford library functions.

Coverage, practice materials

  • Coverage. The exam will cover material from the start of the quarter through backtracking recursion. This means all content up through and including Lecture 12, Section 4, and Assignment 4. Note: Assignment 4 will not be due before the midterm, but backtracking questions will be on the exam. It is in your best interest to work steadily on the assignment before the exam!

  • Format. Most questions will ask you to write a function or short passage of code that accomplishes a particular task. Other questions may ask you to read a provided passage of code and analyze or reason about its behavior. There may also be short answer questions to answer in prose.

  • Practice. We’ve published two practice exams below. They are both in PDF form, and have solutions included. We strongly recommend that you print these out, and take the exam in a realistic setting (i.e. timed, with only your reference sheet available). Then, go back and check your answers with the solutions and make notes of where to target your study!

  • Practice Exam 1.

  • Practice Exam 2.

    • Solution
    • NOTE: Our solution to Problem 3 runs in O(n log n) time – the phrasing of the question to require O(n) was a mistake.

  • Midterm Level Backtracking Problem.

  • Additional practice exercises

    • Revisit our section materials. We pack each weekly section handout with many more exercises that fit in the section meeting, so there are plenty of good options there. Section exercises are similar size and scope to those we use for exams (in fact, many section exercises originally appeared on exams in previous quarters).
    • The exercises in the textbook are another great source for practice.

  • Review session A group of our fabulous section leaders will lead a review session leading up to the midterm on Friday, October 24th from 4-6pm in 380-380C! It will be recorded and posted on Ed after the session for those who can’t make it in person.

Advice

We absolutely want you to come out on top! The lectures, sections, and assignments work together to guide you toward mastery of the course learning goals and the exams serve as an assessment of your progress. The absolute best outcome everyone has a great grasp on the material to nail the exam.

Read on for our advice on how to make that happen for you!

Miscellaneous Resources

Reflection and Check-in Meeting

The final part of the mid-quarter diagnostic process is an optional reflection and check-in with your section leader. We plan to grade the diagnostic during the weekend after the window closes and will release grades shortly thereafter. After you receive your grading feedback, you will be invited to sign up for a one-on-one meeting with your section leader to reflect on your experience taking the diagnostic and your personal learning goals for the rest of the course. These check-in meetings are optional, but strongly recommended.

Final Thoughts

✨We want you to do well on this exam.✨

See this as an opportunity to show what you’ve learned and display your great efforts in the class so far. Always remember why you are here! Your efforts to build practice skills and real understanding will take you a lot further than a pristine transcript. If you work hard toward mastery and feel good about your understanding of computer science that is an achievement to be proud of—regardless of how many points you get relative to the other students in the course.