Exam Information

Exam 1 Overview

Your exam will consist of a single challenging problem that will put together all of the material you have learned so far, as well as test your ability to synthesize that material to approach a problem you have never seen before.

This does not mean that you only have one way to earn credit on this exam, or that you will fail the exam if you don’t know how to solve the problem.

You will have to solve the problem to get Mastery on the exam, but you will have multiple ways to get Proficiency, including solving a part of the problem, explaining where you got stuck on the problem, or sketching out in theory how you would solve the problem even if you’re not sure how to do it in Java. Explicit details about that will be available on the exam.

What Will I Need to Know for the Exam?

You will need to know:

  1. How to work with variables
  2. How to take input from a user and present output via the command line
  3. How to declare and call methods
  4. How to use conditional statements like if/else and switch
  5. How to use while and/or for loops
  6. How to choose which of these topics are applicable in a given problem statement

What Can I Use for The Exam?

You can use your computer, with only the following two things open:

  1. VSCode (or your editor of choice) open to a completely blank folder/project/document
  2. The documentation for the Java language found at https://docs.oracle.com/en/java/

Accessing any other materials besides these two things during the exam, including notes, your textbook, additional files, or other websites other than the Java documentation will be considered a violation of the Honor Code.

How Do I Prepare for The Exam?

There are multiple ways to prepare for the exam. The primary way is to practice the material, especially challenging problems, especially ones that do not explicitly tell you how to solve them step-by-step.

Here are some more specific ways to practice:

  • Review Session: Tuesday’s lab is going to be a review session. You’ll be given a sample problem that will look a lot like the one that you will do for the exam. You’ll have the opportunity to either work on it individually, or in groups of your choosing.
  • Book Exercises: The exercises at the end of each chapter in your book are comprehensive and wonderful resources. If you find yourself stuck on one, feel free to ask your friends or me or a tutor for help.
  • Office Hours: My office hours are still 11-12 every day next week. I’ll also make additional office hours available that I’ll announce in class Monday.
  • Helproom Hours: There are drop-in hours in Briggs 419 from 7-10 PM on Sunday-Thursday, with students who are ready to help with CMSC 150.
  • Tutors: There are some wonderful tutors listed on our syllabus who can help you if you have specific content problems you are unsure about.

Can I Revise My Exam If I Don’t Do Well?

You can retake one of your two exams in this course during the finals period. You don’t have to choose which one to retake until after you’ve taken both exams.