General Exam Information

• We’re changing up the exam format to give you more flexibility and less time-pressure:

  • Exam #1 was electronically timed (2 hours).
  • Exam #2 will be electronically timed with a length of 36 hours, and you can take it in a contiguous 36 hour window of your choosing within the specified four days for that exam. Please keep in mind that if you start the exam late (e.g., Sunday) you may have less than 36 hours to complete the exam. Specifically, you will have min(36 hours, time until Sunday at 11:59 pm) to complete the exam.
  • For Exam #3 and Exam #4, you may use the entire 48 hours (actually, 47h58m) of the exam window. If you like, you could open the exam as soon as it is released and submit for the final time immediately before it is due.
• The course staff will try to design exams that can be completed within 1.5 hours, but you will have the entire time specified above to complete each.
• All exams are open-book, but as always the Honor Code applies.
• From the first three exams, the lowest score will be dropped, but the last exam cannot be dropped.

Exam Instructions

Distribution and Submission

• Each exam will be released on Gradescope at 12:01 am Pacific Time on its release date, and it will be available until 11:59 pm Pacific Time on its due date.
• You may re-submit your answers multiple times on Gradescope, and we will grade your most recent submission.
• Late submissions (received after 11:59 pm on the due date), will receive no credit.

• You will have two options for taking the exam:

  • “Exam #1 [Embedded]” portal on Gradescope: the exam itself is embedded into Gradescope and each individual question has space for you to enter your answer or upload a picture.
  • “Exam #1 [Full Upload]” portal on Gradescope: this option takes the format of a traditional problem set. You will upload a pdf of your entire exam (either typed or handwritten) and tag the corresponding pages. Your submission time will be recorded when the file is uploaded, so tagging pages will not count against the time limit. You can download the template (i.e., the exam file) within the portal if you wish to print it out.
  • For either option, you may type your answers or handwrite them and scan/take pictures of them. Please tag your solutions and write legibly! Answers that we cannot decipher will not receive credit.
  • Please only take the exam through one of these portals. If you open the exam in both portals, we will only grade your last submission.

• To avoid issues with the submission process:

  • Please test your internet and other equipment before beginning the exam.
  • Submit early and often! You can re-submit as many times as you like within the time limit.
  • If you expect internet issues (e.g., possible power outage), or if you experience internet issues during the exam, please email the staff list (cs161-win2021-staff@lists.stanford.edu) as soon as you are aware of the problem.

Policies

The midterm is open-book, closed-collaboration, and subject to the Honor Code.

• You may:

  • consult inanimate materials or resources, including the course notes and reference materials online, as long as they do not violate the stipulations below. If you refer to any online sources as part of obtaining your answer, you must cite them. If you use any results from online sources (outside of course materials), you must include a proof or justification as applicable.
  • cite without proof any result from lectures or from the lecture notes, unless otherwise stated.

• You may not:

  • talk to, consult, or collaborate with anyone about the exam.
  • post questions on any public or private forums (e.g. Stack Overflow, Chegg, Slack, etc.).
  • enter exam questions into any software, apps, or websites.
  • access resources that directly explain how to answer questions from the actual exam. This includes equation solution finders, and software, apps, or websites where other people have provided answers to specific questions (e.g., Chegg’s Expert Q&A, etc.).

• Interactions with the course staff during the 48-hour exam window will be limited to non-exam-related questions, unless you are pointing out a possible error, typo, or omission.

  • We will publicly clarify (in a single, pinned Ed post) any errors, typos, or omissions brought to our attention in the first 24 hours of the exam window.
  • Other than errors, typos, or omissions brought to our attention in the first 24 hours of the exam window, we will NOT answer any questions that you have about the exam, including questions on logistics and clarification questions. This is to be fair to all students across all time zones since we can’t guarantee response times. (Questions about the logistics/policies described here are ok!)
  • Office hours will still occur during the 48-hour exam window, but we will NOT answer any exam-related questions. Ed posts (on homework and other exam-unrelated topics) during the exam window will not be visible to other students until they have been approved by a TA.
  • If you have a question during the exam, try to figure out the answer the best you can. If needed, clearly indicate on your exam that you had a question, and what you assumed the answer was.
  • Advice: If you get stuck on a problem, move on to the next one. Pay attention to how many points each problem is worth. Read the problem statements carefully.

• Post-exam: Please do not discuss anything about the exam (e.g. on Ed, with classmates, etc.) until exam solutions have been released.

OAE Students

Students with approved OAE exam accommodations have been contacted separately about the exam. If you have OAE accommodations and have not been contacted, please email the staff mailing list ASAP.

Practice Exam

• We have posted some past exams on Canvas, in case you want extra practice. However, note that these exams will not cover exactly the same topics that will be on the exam.

Exams