The following are standard instructions for CS 173 exams, including quizzes, full-period midterms, short examlets, and final exams. Please familiarize yourself with them ahead of the first exam.

Please bring any apparent bugs or ambiguity to the attention of the proctors. Please feel free to ask the proctors for help with problems created by disabilities or by other circumstances unrelated to the exam content.

We'll use the front screen or board to post the ending time, turn-in instructions, bug fixes, and clarifications. If your vision is poor, please sit towards the front.

These are closed-book exams. You may not consult with other students. You may not use notes. All electronic devices including your cell phone and calculator should be turned off and out of reach (e.g. in your bag under the table). Watches are ok, as long as they are simple timekeeping devices.

Make sure your name, netID, and discussion section are on the exam. If the exam has separate parts (e.g. two separate sheets) or you used extra paper or the final page seems loose, make sure this information is on each separate part.

Please do not sit next to your friends. It is very easy for others to misunderstand close friendship as cheating, which causes students to worry about cheating even when it isn't happening. If we use methods for randomizing seating, do not attempt to defeat them. For examlets lasting only part of the period, you'll have a chance to move back next to your friends after the examlet ends.

Obviously, you may not look at the exams of other students, share answers, and so forth. But, also, please do not do things which look like cheating. For example, don't talk to your neighbor during the exam even if the topic is innocent. Don't compare answers until you've left the exam room. If you need to look up your discussion time (e.g. on your smart phone), do this in front of a proctor (e.g. at the turn-in table).

After you turn in your exam, please leave the room until lecture restarts, so we can tell how many people are still working and don't have to worry about why you are (say) surfing the web on your phone.

Do all work in the space provided, using the backs of sheets if necessary. Please indicate clearly if your work continues onto the back side, or if your work needs to be read in some non-obvious order. Ask a proctor if you need more paper.

Erasing and crossing off are both good ways to delete unwanted work. Just make sure we can easily tell which parts are your final answer.

Points may be deducted for solutions which are correct, but hard to understand, poorly explained, excessively hard to read, or excessively complicated. Use your best mathematical style and your best handwriting.

Brief explanations and/or showing work (even when not requested by the problem) may increase partial credit for buggy answers. However, we almost never give partial credit for multiple-choice questions.

Unless explicitly requested by the problem, it is not necessary to simplify or calculate out complex constant expressions such as 0.7¹⁵ or 7! or log₃ 2. However, you should simplify expressions such as logarithms inside exponents (e.g. 3^{log₂ n}).

If you wish to discuss the exam with other students after the exam is over, you must first verify that they have already taken the exam, e.g. they aren't about to take a makeup exam.