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Here are some general tips and advice for studying for and writing the final exam.
Here is the cover page for the final examination on the St. George Campus (the exam is slightly different at UTM). Use this to plan your time by figuring out how many minutes you can afford to spend on each question, based on its weight.
Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of last term's final exam, and this is only the second time that this course is taught so there are no other previous exams. However, some of the material used to be covered in CSC 364H (greedy algorithms, dynamic programming, network flows), so old exams from that course will contain questions that you can use to practice.
The term test(s) will last 50 minutes and will be held during regularly scheduled tutorials -- see the "important dates" for the exact test date(s), and the course schedule for tutorial times.
If you have any serious conflict with the time or date of the test(s), please inform your instructor immediately to make alternative arrangements.
The term test(s) will be closed book (i.e., NO aids allowed), and should be written in pen (remarking requests for tests written in pencil will not be accepted) -- the test paper will have lots of room for rough work.
We want to encourage you to be honest about what you know
and what you do not know,
because it's important to be aware of the level of your own knowledge.
(Also, to be quite frank,
this will spare you the trouble of writing
-- and us the trouble of reading --
lots of random or irrelevant bits of information
in the hopes of getting a few part marks.)
For this reason,
if you cannot answer a question
(or part of a question)
on a term test or on the final exam,
you will receive 20% of the marks for that question
(or part of a question) if you write
``I don't know''
(or something similar)
in the space reserved for your answer.
You will NOT receive the 20%
if you leave your answer completely blank,
or if you write anything in addition to the sentence above
(unless it's been crossed off),
because neither of those cases
show that you are aware of what you don't know.
Note that it is certainly possible to get less than 20% on a question, if you write an answer that is mostly incorrect.