The Most Depressing Exam Ever...

[thespawned]

:rant
I just took one of my second year computer science exams (Keele University, Staffs, ENG). Advanced Programming Practices...

...The most evil exam ever! So harsh...

To understand this, we have two parts to the assessment in this module. Coursework and Exam. Coursework is all the practical Java programming stuff (this year it was a multi-threaded game server), and the exam *should* have been the theoritcal background behind this (the use of monitors and thread synchronization, pivitol points on OO programming, the finer points of the AWT/Swing collections, etc...)

But no.... Instead, all the of the questions had significant sections where you were expected to write java code (in an exam conditions, no computers etc...). And this wasnt just simple java code, no, it was writting the code to impliment binary trees with all their recursive access methods etc...

I dont have a problem with them giving you a chunk of code, and asking you to analyse it etc... What does this do here, what are the reasons it will not compile, etc... But actually getting you to write entire classes is crazy.

In an EXAM!?

On paper!?

Without a compiler!?

Very frustraiting exam paper. I mean, no matter how good a programmer you are, I mean you could be the most amazing programmer in the world, its impossible to code on paper (unless you have an amazing memory).

What makes it worse, is that a year ago when taking my first year programming modules, our lecturers told us, in simple terms, that we would never have to do any significant coding in an exam, due to how unfair it is.

Argh. This is one frustraiting day. I have an exam tomorrow, systems development. Should be a walk in the park compared to this one!. I need my GP2x to turn up tomorrow, just after my last exam...

Sorry, no one probably cares about this. Just very frustraiting that the theoritical side of this was all overlooked. A very badly written exam script. Might have to go see my head of department next week...I cant imagine anyone else found it particulary fair either.

 

[WrongEyedJesus]

Perhaps the most depressing exam was the one my A Level Biology students sat this morning, where three of them hadn't even got it together to bring a pencil and a ruler.

I don't know why I bother.........

 

[pantera6]

Perhaps the most depressing exam was the one my A Level Biology students sat this morning, where three of them hadn't even got it together to bring a pencil and a ruler.

I don't know why I bother.........

Haha
thats a classic
I have a biology exam soon lol
i should be revising now for it infact

 

[PokeParadox]

:rant
I just took one of my second year computer science exams (Keele University, Staffs, ENG). Advanced Programming Practices...

...The most evil exam ever! So harsh...

To understand this, we have two parts to the assessment in this module. Coursework and Exam. Coursework is all the practical Java programming stuff (this year it was a multi-threaded game server), and the exam *should* have been the theoritcal background behind this (the use of monitors and thread synchronization, pivitol points on OO programming, the finer points of the AWT/Swing collections, etc...)

But no.... Instead, all the of the questions had significant sections where you were expected to write java code (in an exam conditions, no computers etc...). And this wasnt just simple java code, no, it was writting the code to impliment binary trees with all their recursive access methods etc...

I dont have a problem with them giving you a chunk of code, and asking you to analyse it etc... What does this do here, what are the reasons it will not compile, etc... But actually getting you to write entire classes is crazy.

In an EXAM!?

On paper!?

Without a compiler!?

Very frustraiting exam paper. I mean, no matter how good a programmer you are, I mean you could be the most amazing programmer in the world, its impossible to code on paper (unless you have an amazing memory).

What makes it worse, is that a year ago when taking my first year programming modules, our lecturers told us, in simple terms, that we would never have to do any significant coding in an exam, due to how unfair it is.

Argh. This is one frustraiting day. I have an exam tomorrow, systems development. Should be a walk in the park compared to this one!. I need my GP2x to turn up tomorrow, just after my last exam...

Sorry, no one probably cares about this. Just very frustraiting that the theoritical side of this was all overlooked. A very badly written exam script. Might have to go see my head of department next week...I cant imagine anyone else found it particulary fair either.

Wow... that is harsh man...

In our Cooperating Processes exam... we had to write a monitor class on paper. The rest of it was mainly consisting of LTS diagrams etc.

 

[kardasan]

In an EXAM!?

On paper!?

Without a compiler!?

I just got back from an exam where we had to write some simple app in Assembler (of some hypothetical non-acumulator processor). I've also had such exam (also in JAVA) and I see nothing wrong with it except that your hand is going to hurt after the exam. The point is that you have to know the basics and if the code won't compile because of one bad set bit it won't be scored bad.
By the way... binary trees with access methods are not THAT hard, you know. What exactly did you have to write? Something beside tree itself and left_child() right_child() parent() methods?
if not then you could really do it in something like half of the A4 page.

 

[thespawned]

Thanks for your comments... After chatting to several other people it was generally agreed it was a pretty unfair exam, and *nothing* like all the previous exams for this module (which are traditionally much more theory based).

Nurgh. I suppose if you are a genius you can code your stuff on paper, sure. Maybe not all of us are genius's <_<

Oh well. system dev tomorrow should be a *breeze*! jackson diagrams and UML! simple

 

[Rico]

Coding on paper really isn't a problem. If you find yourself forgetting syntax and common function names (such as the ones they'd expect you to use in the exam Q) then you need to go back and revise it.

At Bath we only use pseduocode for this kind of thing, but the exams are 99% theoretical stuff.

 

[thespawned]

you need to go back and revise it.

bit late now

 

[thespawned]

In an EXAM!?

On paper!?

Without a compiler!?

What exactly did you have to write? Something beside tree itself and left_child() right_child() parent() methods?
if not then you could really do it in something like half of the A4 page.

we had to provide the basic implimentation, as well as getSize(), plus iterators for the three traversals, inorder, preorder, postorder.

i found it difficult. i got most of the implimentation done, but dont know how accurate it was. im going to try and forget about this exam now. lol.

 

[Dzz]

I think one should expect to write code in an Advanced Programming Practices exam.

As to doing it on paper without a compiler or internet available to help, it demonstrates fluency to not have to rely on tools. Those who are more fluent will get a better grade. Seems fair to me.

 

[sam fisher]

Perhaps the most depressing exam was the one my A Level Biology students sat this morning, where three of them hadn't even got it together to bring a pencil and a ruler.

I don't know why I bother.........

I'll be taking that exam in two years lol A level students in this school are dumb asses in any computer related field <---- Off Topic

 

[thespawned]

I think one should expect to write code in an Advanced Programming Practices exam.

As to doing it on paper without a compiler or internet available to help, it demonstrates fluency to not have to rely on tools. Those who are more fluent will get a better grade. Seems fair to me.

if we only had an exam for this module, and that was 100% of the grade, then yes, i agree, we should have to do some serious coding in the exam. but, we have had two pieces of coursework, both pretty serious programming projects (a graphical interface/shopping simulation, and a multi-threaded game server, complete with a simple game and protocols).

I think they should have tested our coding ability in the coursework, and our theoretical knowledge, about whats actually going on underneath, the principles etc, in the exam...

im spending way to long thinking about this. maybe i should just accept it. its done now either way.

 

[RiX0R]

We've also had to do this on occassion. Imho it's not a big problem... mistakes like forgetting a semicolon (bwah) or a brace (slightly worse) can easily be forgiven if the code shows that you get the general gist. Other errors like variable declarations... you can just as easily write type variable as variable: type, as long as you get the intent across. The fact of the matter is, how you write things down isn't as important as the fact that you do it unambiguously. Perhaps it would have been better if you were told to use pseudocode, since that simply can't be compiled anyway, and you can focus on the algorithmic aspects instead of the syntax.

On the other hand, if you feel troubled by things like "forgetting the name of that function in the standard library", on the off-chance that you'll need it, feel free to invent the "standard" function! Us programmers live and work in a world of our own making, with foundations that we define ourselves. If you require a function that does so-and-so, state at the beginning of your answer that you define function F(x, y, z) to do so-and-so, then happily go on to use it in your answer.

About the actual questions: those are just the concepts you should know, and you should be able to write them down in any language. If you don't know the language they want it in, then invent your own language, write it down in that, and tell them that you'll gladly write a compiler from your own language to their language, if they desire one. After the exam, of course .

 

[Twimfy]

I just finished my environmental law exam at Bournemouth Uni.

Was pure evil, I studied damn hard for it and Tilac our evil law lecturer wrote an exam based on specific cases rather than law theory, which is just plain silly because there are millions of cases that have occured over the past 200 years, how the hell are we supposed to know which ones to look up?

Ryan vs Fletcher 1968....wtf?

 

[Ktdata]

I know your pain! I had to do that on my AP Computer Science AB test. I thought it was insanely hard too. All 4 of us that took the test thought it was.

 

[PSyMastR]

I know your pain! I had to do that on my AP Computer Science AB test. I thought it was insanely hard too. All 4 of us that took the test thought it was.

I took that test in may. It was really fun. Writing code on paper sucks though.

EDIT: I was the only one taking the test.

 

[Hanz™]

The thing that I don't like about writing code is that I can't delete it if I do something wrong, I have to cross it out. Also having to cram extra stuff you forgot to put in the top of the class when you have left yourself no space is no fun.

 

[thespawned]

The thing that I don't like about writing code is that I can't delete it if I do something wrong, I have to cross it out. Also having to cram extra stuff you forgot to put in the top of the class when you have left yourself no space is no fun.

this was my pain.. im glad some people understand!

 

[greenpix]

Took me about 5 years to realize that coding on paper is quicker and easier.
First of all you won't need to compile the code, just to get stuck in some error you cannot figure out. We had a few exams with coding on computer but it is really nerve wrecking to see your code not working. If you write it on paper you won't notice small faults that quickly.
I agree on the fact that the insertion of code is quite a nightmare on paper - that why I always tried to keep some spaces when declaring variables or doing the more complex code.
Only that we had to use checked paper for the coding drove me crazy. That simply does not make sense at all whilst writing in a programming language that is usually based on lines.

 

[lintsniffer]

The thing that I don't like about writing code is that I can't delete it if I do something wrong, I have to cross it out. Also having to cram extra stuff you forgot to put in the top of the class when you have left yourself no space is no fun.

I have tried to 'ctrl+z' many times in my non-pc life. Once in algebra I was drawing graphs, I messed up, and I actually tried to hit ctrl+z.