This file will not be updated after 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, February 26; this starts silent running 50 minutes in length starts at 10 minutes after the appointed hour on Thursday, February 27: - for Erindale, 3 p.m. - for St. George, 6 p.m. St. George students DEFINITELY have to go to their assigned tutorial room; failure to do so will result in a mark of 0 check the newsgroup up to silent running for further details The Erindale and St. George midterms will be different, in content at least and in style perhaps; I think that the technical term is that they are independent -- knowledge of one tells you nothing about the other There will be no make-up midterm to write; if you miss the midterm for a valid reason, your final exam mark will be used to compute your midterm mark at the top of the hour (after 50 minutes), the TA will ask you to stop writing; please do so you will (probably) be writing on the question sheet; the standard option of using the backs of pages if you need more space is available to you CLOSED book examination aids allowed (and nothing else): you may bring a "fact" sheet (an 8.5 by 11 inch piece of paper, double- sided), self-prepared NOTE ON "self-prepared": I think it is to your advantage to prepare your fact sheet YOURSELF. Consider it an essential task in organizing your thought processes. You decide what you are prepared to memorize and what you are prepared to look up. Since you prepared the sheet, you know where to look. bring multiple (non-red ink) pens; NO pencils BRING YOUR STUDENT CARD ! you are responsible for everything up to the end of Week 6 lectures; check out the file: responsible4 probably 50 marks (=> 1 mark a minute); I haven't decided yet read it over quickly to see what the easy (easier) questions are, and do them when in doubt, state your assumptions and show your intermediate work if the question asks you to "State 5 advantages of over " - number your points 1 through 5 clearly - do not describe and expect the marker to find the 5 points; there will be no scavenger hunts in the marking, looking for answers; an answer that correctly describes but does not state any explicit advantages is likely to receive zero if the question asks you to "Briefly describe ", make it brief in general, make sure you know what TYPE of answer the question is asking for before answering it (e.g., state vs. describe vs. prove vs. show an example vs. calculate vs. ...) Midterm "philosophy" (as opposed to final exam philosophy): - probably the single biggest determinant in the way I set up a midterm exam is the time limit of 50 minutes; I can't ask you to "think" too much and you can't afford to "think" too much - so my guess, given that it is a CLOSED book test, is that there may be some "Define ..." or "State .." or "Show that ..." or "Why ..." or ... questions, which require you get the answer down quickly - you will have to leave yourself time for questions like "How would you ...", which should cause you to go through your simulation tool kit to find an appropriate technique - the best advice from this is to budget your time well, which of course is difficult to do if you don't have much time to budget - at 10 past the hour, be prepared to think nimbly and to write to the point Good luck.