Exams: Oral and Written

Planning to Take a Written Exam

All written exams (both the midterm and the final) are in a "take home" format and are administered via Gradescope. You may consult any resource during the exam window (eg, former students, LLMs, Panopto videos), but when you are actually filling out the exam answers you are required to fill out the exam without the benefit of any resource other than your brain. For example, while you are writing your submission you should not be talking with former students, not be texting an LLM, not be reviewing notes from your study group's meeting, and not be playing a Panopto video in the background.

Former students have shared that a good strategy for taking an exam is:

open the exam as soon as it's released, to see what topics are covered
review those topics and write up your "draft solution" individually
[optional] meet with your group to discuss your answers. Then take a >=30m break
write up a final solution without referencing any materials generated during the group meeting, and submit to Gradescope

If you want to get a sense for Hannah's specific exam format, you may be interested in the midterm from 22sp and its solution.

Midterm Format and Topics

The midterm will be released on Thu night and is due Fri, Oct 24 @ 10pm. We consider any topic up to, and including, the Monday before its release to be "fair game" for the quiz. The midterm is written so that it takes ~1h of time to complete, which does not include any time spent with your optional study group.

Final Format and Topics

The final exam will have the same logistics as the quizzes, but longer: the final will be open for >=48h and is intended to take ~2h of time to complete. The final will be released on Mon morning and is due at Wed, Dec 10 @ 10:20am. Please note that this is the only CSE 344 due date that is not 10pm.

Oral Exams

There will be 2 oral exams, and each is scheduled to overlap with the midterm and the final. The topic list for each oral exam will be the same as its concurrent written exam.

If you need more information about the exam format, please see this example script.

On the day of your oral exam, please arrive ~5m early and bring a photo ID + something to write with (eg, pen or pencil).

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