My CS245 Midterm and other stuff

I got my CS245 midterm back today. Holy crap, what the heck. Not even kidding. I got a B+ on it. I should have gotten an A+ if Prof. Trefler didn’t decide to be such a stickler for detail when he was instructing the markers on what to do (I did legitimately make one mistake). So basically he told us that there are these 2 things called soundness and completeness which equate 2 methods of proof (i.e. if you prove something a certain way, you can say “by soundness” or “by completeness” and you can state the proof a different way). He then proceeded to make us use soundness and/or completeness on pretty much every question on the exam, and every time we did the proof (correctly or incorrectly) but neglected to say “by soundness” or “by completeness” (using those words; leaving them out doesn’t count), he took off somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of the weight of the question and did so for every question on the exam. Of course, since we were taught that it’s an equivalence statement and that the equivalence exists, myself, along with a good chunk of the class, lost a good chunk of our mark on this midterm because we forgot to put this in. Basically it’s equivalent to saying that since we’re given that a = b, then therefore a = b. It’s a dumb reason to lose so many marks, in my opinion. I can understand losing the marks once or twice, or losing a mark each time, but I lost a good chunk of marks EVERY TIME. I lost 10% on the midterm because of this. I talked to the TA in tutorial, and he said flat out that if I’d put that one sentence in, I would have gotten all those marks.

Then there was another question where part b followed almost directly from part a. I got full marks on part a and then said “by part a, part b is correct” (or something to that effect), which I asked the TA in the exam and he said was a valid answer, yet somehow I lost 3 marks. Prof. Trefler spent about 5 minutes staring blankly at my paper before saying “come to my office hour and we’ll discuss it”, which, to me, given his tone of voice, sounded more like “come to my office hour and I’ll spend another half hour staring at it before telling you to come to my next office hour”. I talked to the TA in tutorial, and he couldn’t figure it out either. He told me to see the TA who marked it, which I can’t do, because I have a CS240 midterm tomorrow during that time slot. I had no problems in CS241 when everything was automarked…

Of course, there was also the obligatory “I’ll make you memorize a definition you were never taught” question on the midterm which dropped my mark, along with the mark of one of my friends, by 4. This seems to be a trend in CS classes as it was done on both the CS134 midterm (in the multiple choice section, although the question was dropped after marking) and the CS241 midterm (a somewhat narrow and counterintuitive UNIX question).

OK, enough ranting. On to other things:

CS240: So the CS240 midterm is tomorrow. I have yet to study, and there’s really only 1 or 2 topics I need to study. Unfortunately, my notes on these 2 topics are awful, so I have to wait till class tomorrow when Prof. Cormack said he’d try to go over them. Once I get these 2 concepts, I think I’ll be ready for the midterm.

In other CS240 news, apparently the TAs are a bit disorganized. In the tutorial yesterday (yes, tutorial on Sunday), the TA went over a few topics. The tutorial itself wasn’t too bad, although some topics weren’t covered in as much detail as I would have liked. After the tutorial, I asked the tutor where I could pick up my written assignments (240 has a written and programming component to about half the assignments so far). He told me where to pick them up. I went there, but they weren’t there. Apparently the other TA either hadn’t put them out, or had lost mine. I hope he hasn’t lost mine, especially since one of the assignments was on one of the topics I don’t understand well. I’m waiting for an e-mail reply.

In other OTHER 240 news, I asked the TA about one of the topics I was confused about, to make sure I had my definitions right. He told me I had them slightly wrong and corrected me. When I proceeded to use the definitions he had given me to help out someone else, I was told by Profs. Cormack and Ragde (why Prof. Ragde is on the CS240 newsgroup so much escapes me, but nevertheless…) that my definitions were wrong. The TA told me so, though… :S *sigh* I just hope everything works out come April.

The CS251 midterm was last Thursday. I thought it was a good midterm. The first 6 (of 8 ) questions were pretty easy; simple binary math and boolean expressions. Nothing too serious. The last 2 questions were harder. The last question took me a good 1/2 hour because the solution was a bit counterintuitive. I got it in the end (or I think I did, although given how my 245 midterm worked out, I could have been completely off the mark), and the solution was really cool. I actually had to chuckle to myself when I got it. The second-last question was really wordy. I had to read it 3 or 4 times to make sure I understood what the question was asking. It dealt with 251’s Finite State Machines (similar to the DFAs from 241, but not the same, and it’s this difference that throws me off every time I see them). As usually happens when dealing with 251’s FSMs, I got thrown off for about 5 minutes before realizing how to do it, but I think I got, if not full marks, then part marks for sure. We’ll see, though. Hopefully Prof. Morton has them tomorrow, although I wouldn’t be surprised to not get them back till next week or so.

My JAPAN 202 midterm was also last Thursday. The midterm wasn’t bad, although I did well on the first test so I didn’t study a lot of stuff I should have studied (note to those taking Japanese courses: when the prof says “the test will focus on…”, just ignore the rest of the sentence; it’s usually not true. I should have learned this already, but haven’t). I can’t complain though, except the last question, which was 4 sentences on free composition, and I can’t do free composition even in English, especially not under pressure.

I’m a bit worried about Stat 230, since I think I screwed up the last test. I think the problem is that I’m trying to sort problems into subsets of solutions, instead of solving the problem as it is, which is how I got 99% in Data Management in high school. The material is the same as in Data. I’m going to try to get back into that state of mind for the next test and see how it goes. Unfortunately, since there’s no textbook for Stat230, finding practise questions is a bit difficult. I should probably ask Diana about this.

That’s about it for the academic stuff.

This weekend’s going to be pretty busy for me. Luckily I don’t have any urgent assignments for next week, since Super Smash Brawl is coming out on Sunday, and I, like all Wii-owners, have been looking forward to it for about 1 1/2 years since the Wii’s launch (and even before that). I’ve made plans with a friend in residence to stay up all night playing Brawl on release. I, luckily, don’t have class till 12:30 on Mondays, so I can stay up till 4 am and still get a good night’s sleep before class. I don’t know about him. But oh well, it’s Brawl ^_^

This Saturday is KonJa’s Karaoke trip to Toronto, which I’m planning on going on. It was a blast last time. Hopefully it’ll be the same this time. There’s also the Japanese Speech Contest at UofT that I want to go see (a friend of mine from JAPAN 102 is in it), although I may not be able to due to trip timing to Toronto. We’ll see.

Anyway, I have a KonJa meeting in 5 minutes. Until next time,

Lyle Waldman