CPSC 203: Midterm information

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CPSC 203: Midterm Information

More information will be added here as we approach the exam date so you should check back here for updates

Date/location:

The exam will be written outside of class time: Feb 15 from 4:30 - 5:45 PM (Location ST148)

Review material:

During lecture as I cover the material I have provided suggestions of what an exam-like question may look like. You should attend class for this info and note the details as it comes up. If you missed class then you should get the in class notes of a classmate.
Online review questions: the following are meant to provide you with some extra practice so you need to actually try them on your own to get anything out of it. For that reason solutions won't be posted nor will I email you the solution key. But you can still get assistance: If you still have questions after attempting a question then that's where we can help just make sure you have tried them first! [Online review questions] [Starting spreadsheet for short answer question] If you just want a quick verification of results, you're in luck, you can try typing your answer into the appropriate program like Excel. The advantage of not providing a solution and requiring you to type it in is that it forces you to come up with an answer before looking at the answer (because you have to type in your answer before seeing any results). Plus recall that the more engage you are, the more that you do, the deeper is your learning. If you're still puzzled about how Excel gave the answer then that is the time that you can come by during my office hours or even the CT.
Want even more practice, try the library website, there's online books that are licensed by the U of C. Look for Office2013 or 2016 books and you can try their recommended exercises: [Safari website]

Front cover from the actual exam (it has the exam instructions so make sure you look at this beforehand...important so make sure you read them beforehand!)

Material that you should study

The lecture material: the PowerPoint slides will provide you with an outline of the topics to be covered. However studying the information just listed on the slides won't be sufficient to do well on the final exam. You will also need to take notes in class and to study and understand those notes. If you have any questions then make sure that you ask me for help and clarification.

Using software applications: General
	You won't be asked about where different features are located in a particular program i.e., what is the sequence of clicks to invoke a particular feature of Excel
MS-Word (not applicable if there was no MS-Word assignment)
	You be asked general questions about the benefits of using certain features of Word (e.g. automatically creating a table of contents, using master documents)

^{MS-Excel documentation that you will get for the exam: as indicated in
class the documentation shows you the function arguments ("how to run function")
but not detailed explanations about how each one works such as the return value(s).
Note: due to time constraints some functions may not have been covered during
the semester which means that those same functions will not appear on the exam.}

Basic mathematical operators: assignment (=), addition (+), subtraction (-), multiplication(*), division (/), exponent(^)
Basic statistical formulas (an alternative to entering the start : cell range is to manually enter a series of numbers as the function argument).
	SUM(<start cell> : <end cell>) AVERAGE(<start cell> : <end cell>) MIN(<start cell> : <end cell>) MAX(<start cell> : <end cell>)
Counting functions (an alternative to entering the start : cell range is to manually enter the data sequence as the function argument).
	COUNT(<start cell> : <end cell>) COUNTA(<start cell> : <end cell>) COUNTBLANK(<start cell> : <end cell>)
String (and related utility) functions (an alternative to entering the cell is to manually enter a string as the function argument).
	PROPER(<"string"> or <cell containing a string>) UPPER(<"string"> or <cell containing a string>) LOWER(<"string"> or <cell containing a string>) TRIM(<"string"> or <cell containing a string>) CONCATENATE(<cell₁>or <"string">, <cell₂>or <"string">_....<cell_n> or <"string">) LEFT(<cell>, <number of characters>) RIGHT(<cell>, <number of characters>) MID(<cell>, <start position>, <number of characters>) FIND(<find text>, <within text>, [<start position>])
Date and time functions (no function argument)
	TODAY() NOW()
Branching function
	=IF(<condition to check>, <return value: condition true>, <return value: condition false>)
Logical comparators (relational operators): less than (<), less than equal to (<=), greater than (>), greater than equal to (>=), equal to (=), not equal to (<>)
Lookup functions
	LOOKUP(<Lookup value>, <Lookup column (vector) Start : End>, <result column (vector) Start : End>) VLOOKUP(<Lookup value>, <Lookup table Start : End>, <Lookup table Column specifying the return value>, [<Exact match required?>])
Conditional counting functions (an alternative to entering the start : cell range is to manually enter the data sequence as the function argument).
	COUNTIF(<start cell> : <end cell>, <condition>) COUNTIFS(<start cell> : <end cell>, <condition>, (<start cell> : <end cell>, <condition>) )
Logical Functions
	NOT(<true or false value>) AND(<true or false value>, <true or false value>...<true or false value>) OR(<true or false value>, <true or false value>...<true or false value>)

MS-Access: It won't be covered on the midterm.

How to prepare for the exam

As mentioned early in the semester, Computer Science isn't an area where you can just read a book or memorize a few points on a slide and expect to be proficient and have a deep understanding of concepts. While it is important to 'study' concepts, this traditional form of preparation is mandatory but not sufficient. Like any other hands-on area you evaluate and improve your knowledge and understanding by 'doing'.

Examples (non-exhaustive list of how to prepare for the exam):

Logic: try creating arbitrary logical expressions in the "free-form" style that you were introduced to in lecture e.g. (T and F) Or T. Alternatively you can try expressing the freeform logical expressions in the form of a truth table and working through all the true/false combinations.

Freeform

(F OR T) AND T

Truth table (on the exam you will have to fill in the values for Col 3 - 5)

Col1 Col2 Col3 =
Col1 OR Col 2
Col4 =
Col1 AND Col2
Col 5 =
Col3 OR Col4

F F F F F

F T T F T

T F T F T

T T T T T

Now that you've learned how to use the 3 logical functions in Excel: AND(), OR(), NOT() you can check the correctness of these expressions. Before entering them into Excel however you should try to evaluate them by hand. You get more out of the exercise if you try to work things for yourself instead of just "looking at the answers".

Excel: write out functions by hand and predict the expected outcome (by hand and not by viewing the results in Excel). This method of 'hand' predicting results is referred to as 'tracing' output). Using functions such as (IF(), LOOKUP(), VLOOKUP() and the string functions to solve different real life applications (examples I've given out in lecture).

Exam topics

Lecture topics covered so far	Approximate proportion of exam²
First notes: "Course introduction and administrative information"	~ 6%
Computer fundamentals	16
Logic	12
Spreadsheets	65
Miscellaneous¹	~ 0%
Databases	Won't be on midterm, will be on the final exam

The "If there's is time" topics will be on the midterm only if we talked about them in class.

1 The topic or topics being evaluated in the question doesn't fall neatly into one of the above categories e.g., the question covers materials that span multiple topics

Exam questions²

Multiple choice questions 30 marks

Short answer questions 19 marks
	1 question from either logic or computer fundamentals
	2 questions involving the formulation of an expression in Excel (using built in operators, functions or both)
	1 question requiring the tracing of a pre-created Excel expression with some existing data

^{2 It's based on a near-final version of the midterm (exact proportions may
vary *slightly*)}

Cut-off scale (percentage to GPA, only the latter is used in the calculation of your term grade point - as shown in the grade calculator spreadsheet and as was the case with A1)

Min percent	GPA
0	0
15	0.1
25	0.3
35	0.5
40	0.7
44	1
46	1.1
48	1.2
50	1.3
51	1.4
53	1.5
55	1.6
57	1.7
58	1.8
59	1.9
60	2
61	2.1
62	2.2
63	2.3
64	2.4
65	2.5
66	2.6
67	2.7
68	2.8
69	2.9
70	3
72	3.1
74	3.2
76	3.3
78	3.4
80	3.5
82	3.6
84	3.7
86	3.8
88	3.9
92	4
96	4.1
98	4.2
100	4.3

Col1	Col2	Col3 = Col1 OR Col 2	Col4 = Col1 AND Col2	Col 5 = Col3 OR Col4
F	F	F	F	F
F	T	T	F	T
T	F	T	F	T
T	T	T	T	T