There will be seven closed book exams/quizzes: six quizzes and a short final exam. Each of these (including the final) will be 20 minutes long. See the lecture schedule for the dates.
Quizzes will be taken in our classroom starting at 9:10. The quiz itself will be on moodle So you will need to bring a mobile device (e.g. laptop) to class to take the quiz. Also bring a writing implement and your photo ID.
Quiz makeups will be the Monday after each quiz.
Quizzes must be taken entirely in the classroom. Please read the detailed instructions below.
The skills lists below should be regarded as tentative until a week before each quiz. The quizzes for 4-hour students will also include questions on reading material posted below. This will typically be a conference or journal paper that is relatively short and accessible, or perhaps a set of smaller items (e.g. news stories) with similar total content.
| Quiz | Skills list | 4-hour readings |
|---|---|---|
| Quiz 1 | Quiz 1 skills | Porter 1980 |
| Quiz 2 | Quiz 2 skills | Booth 2017 |
| Quiz 3 | Quiz 3 skills | Magerman 1995 |
| Quiz 4 | Quiz 4 skills | Sadeghi and Farhadi 2011 |
| Quiz 5 | Quiz 5 skills | Pathak et al 2016 |
| Quiz 6 | Quiz 6 skills | Tan et al 2021 |
| Quiz 7 (= final exam) |
Quiz 7 skills | Mankowitz et al 2023 |
Here are some old exams from Fall 2019. This version of the course had two midterms and a final. Also, all the questions in 2019 were open answer and many of these have now been converted to multiple choice. But these exams should give you a general sense of what will be asked.
The quizzes are closed book and must be taken in our classroom. You may not use notes, communicate with other people, consult the web, etc.
Ask the proctors for help if you run into problems. Email the instructor afterwards if you had a problem that may not have been fully addressed at the time. (Among other things, this gives us an accurate record of your name.)
Points may be deducted for solutions which are correct but excessively complicated, hard to understand, poorly explained, incomplete, or excessively hard to read.
Open answer questions do not require long answers. However, some of the prompts ask general questions for which a complete (full-point) answer requires mentioning several points, e.g. several reasons or several types of examples.
Assume that answers require brief justification/work, unless there is clear indication to the contrary (e.g. it's a multiple-choice question, it's asking you to repeat back a standard formula).
When you take each quiz, you will collect a card (usually colored) from the proctors at one of the entrances.
After you sit down, print your name and netID legibly on the card, and also sign it. Your card should look like this
When you leave the classroom, you will drop the card into a box at the proctor table.
Arrive at the classroom with your mobile device, a pen or pencil to fill out the little card, and your ID card for the unlikely possibility that we'll need to check it. You may bring scratch paper but it must be blank at the start of the quiz.
The proctors use the white tables at the top and bottom of the room. Please do not sit there.
The quiz will open at 9:10 and will close at 9:30. Please stay in your seat during this time.
Please plan to arrive around the start of the class period (9 or 9:05), so that you have time to fill in your card and get settled into your seat. If you arrive more than a couple minutes late, you will be asked to sign in.
Please put your phone in airplane mode, so that it doesn't grab one of our scarce wifi connections.
Select the appropriate quiz on moodle. There will be different versions for the 3-hour and 4-hour students.
If you run out of time without explicitly submitting your quiz, moodle automatically submits it for you.
While you are in the classroom, you may not do other sorts of work on your mobile device(s).
If you tend to finish early and expect to get bored, please bring a non-electronic form of amusement such as a book. An e-reader (e.g. a kindle) is ok if it has little or no support for other tasks.
Some DRES accommodations require taking the exam at the DRES Testing Center. More often, you can take it in the normal classroom. In this case, your quiz will close at 9:40 (1.5x time) or 9:50 (2x time). Please sit in the front corner near the podium, so that we can easily proctor the extended-time quizzes and so you will be less disturbed by other folks leaving the room at 9:30.
If the quiz interface freezes, quit and restart your browser window. If your whole computer freezes, restart the computer. Moodle saves frequently and will allow you to re-open the quiz and continue your work. (If this doesn't solve the problem quickly, obviously talk to the proctors.)
If you open the wrong version of the quiz by mistake, close it and open the correct one. After the quiz, send an email to the instructor. If you have spent a long time working on the wrong version, talk to the proctors.
If you have an emergency need to leave the room early, you may not continue working on the quiz. Please contact the instructor about whether the circumstances entitle you to retake the quiz.