Pre-Exam Logistics

Grading and Assignment Solutions

  • x86 Runes and Dark Buffer Arts will be graded before Thanksgiving break, with grades pushed to your hosted repositories.
  • Cache Divination will be graded by Monday after break.

Drop-in/Review Hours

  • Tutor drop-in hours are canceled from Tuesday 20 November through Thursday 29 November. Tutor hours resume Sunday 2 December.
  • Lab meetings on Monday 26 November will include time for exam review.
  • Jean and Ben will hold Tuesday afternoon drop-in hours for review on 27 November.
  • All drop-in hours are canceled Thursday-Friday 29-30 November.

Review

Exam review follows a BYO policy: bring your own questions, examples/problems that don’t make sense, etc. We will be around as a resource for you, but we do not prepare any structured review material.

The chapters we have used in the CSAPP book include many excellent problems. Inventing problems by making small changes to homework/lab problems is also useful.

You may find the following materials from past CS 240 SI sessions useful as a source of small practice problems (available on campus only):

Selections from Midterm and Final exam samples from a similar course at UW in Autumn 2016 or later are useful review material. The exams prior to Autumn 2016 use an old version of x86 and will just confuse you, so avoid them.

Exam

Scope

  • The exam is a handwritten paper exam only.
  • The exam is closed-book, to be completed individually, as a take-home.
  • The exam is designed as a slightly overfull in-class exam. We allow the take-home window to remove time pressure.
  • The exam covers all material from the Hardware-Software Interface part of the course, plus Caches and the Memory Heirarchy.
  • The front page calendar and topics pages on the website provide two complete views of the topics involved.
  • Expect problems that use similar styles of thinking as those you have seen on assignments, but remember they will be paper problems only.

Schedule

  • You may sign out your exam in person at the end of either lecture section on Tuesday 27 November or during afternoon drop-in hours 3:00-5:00pm on Tuesday 27 November.
  • You must sign in your exam in person with Ben by 12:30pm (just after the second class meeting) on Friday 30 November.

Rules and Resources

  • The exam will include this reference material.
  • You may optionally prepare one 2-sided 8.5x11” handwritten note sheet ahead of the exam and use it during the exam. If you use a note sheet:
    • You must show your completed note sheet to Ben when you pick up the exam.
    • You must submit your note sheet with the exam.
  • No calculators or other electronics are allowed.
  • No other resources are allowed.
  • During the exam window, you may not communicate about the exam or 240 material with anyone except the instructors.
    • If asked about the exam or 240 material, the only acceptable response is “I am not allowed to talk about the exam at this time.”
  • Any violation of these rules is an Honor Code violation and will be handled through the relevant processes.
  • Should any emergency or extenuating circumstances arise before you submit the exam that may affect your ability to submit the exam on time (and without missing lab), contact Ben and your Class Dean as soon as possible.