The following are standard instructions for CS 173 examlets. Please familiarize yourself with them ahead of the first exam. See the excuses page for information about illness, disabilties, and other special situations.

Doing the 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.

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.

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}).

Academic integrity issues

These are closed-book exams. You may not consult with other students. You may not use notes or electronic devices. Exception: watches are ok if they are simple timekeeping devices.

Electronic devices must be turned off. Notes and electronic devices must be put away out of sight, e.g. in your bag.

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).

If your phone rings because you forgot to turn it off, it's ok to get it out briefly to silence it.

You may not leave the room and then come back and continue working on your exam. If an emergency (e.g. upset stomach) forces you to leave before you have had time to finish, turn in your partial work and we'll schedule you to take a makeup. (This rule doesn't apply to the final exam.)

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 have to do something that could be misinterpreted, e.g. pick up a dropped eraser, silence a cell phone, do it conspicuously. That way, other people will know what you are doing and not worry.

Please do not sit next to your friends during the examlet. It is very easy for others to misunderstand close friendship as cheating, causing unnecessary worries and investigations. Do not attempt to defeat methods for randomizing seating.

If we see clear evidence of cheating, obviously we'll file an academic integrity charge. If your behavior is merely suspicious (e.g. cell phone out but not in use), we may take actions such as issuing warnings, reseating you, or having you take a makeup for the exam. The second time we see a cell phone, you will automatically be asked to do a makeup.