Programming final only took 4 hrs

[PMMurphy]

I was the 2nd person done my final for my programming course at university. I answered 9 questions in 4 hours and 10 minutes on a span of 36 pieces of paper.

I feel accomplished.

The questions were a bit dumb, we had to sort entire trees ad build them from ground up on paper using diagrams showing step by step execution.

[Dean]

A 4 hour exam? Wow. None of my exams were ever longer than 2 hours. Seems like a long time to be writing. Bet you're glad it's over though!

[PMMurphy]

At 5/9/13 08:48 AM, Dean wrote: A 4 hour exam? Wow. None of my exams were ever longer than 2 hours. Seems like a long time to be writing. Bet you're glad it's over though!

We had to demonstrate step by step process in diagrams of a heap sort with a heap that had 3 levels. That was just part b) of 1 of the 9 questions. If we missed a single step in the process, we got a 0 for the question.

Not only that, but we were not allowed to leave the room not even for bathroom that would of been a 0. We were not allowed to have a phone go off in the exam or even take water breaks.

But the professor did offer us candy.

[Dean]

At 5/9/13 09:08 AM, PMMurphy wrote: Not only that, but we were not allowed to leave the room not even for bathroom that would of been a 0. We were not allowed to have a phone go off in the exam or even take water breaks.

Do you live in a country ruled by some kind of mad dictator? Surely in the civilised world they wouldn't be allowed to lock you in a room for 4 hours, tell you that you're not allowed to go for a piss or have a drink. That just seems absurd.

[PMMurphy]

Students got caught cheating with iphones by taking "breaks" during exams. So the chair of our department enforces stricter rules now.

We are told that if we cannot take this exam without a bathroom break to schedule a better time.

Also this exam was only supposed to last 2 hours. It's just this professor's exams takes ages.

[PMMurphy]

Oh but we are allowed to step outside the door in the professors line a sight.

[Pilot-Doofy]

I always hated hand-written programming exams, they seem a bit irrational considering it would be way quicker and easier to grade if they allowed the students to use the computer like they would in a real-life scenario.

[sharpnova]

At 5/9/13 09:08 AM, PMMurphy wrote:
But the professor did offer us candy.

Was it at least good candy?

[KatMaestro]

At 5/15/13 12:03 AM, Pilot-Doofy wrote: I always hated hand-written programming exams, they seem a bit irrational considering it would be way quicker and easier to grade if they allowed the students to use the computer like they would in a real-life scenario.

Professors love to see students erase the whole paper on final exam. They argue that hand writing can give students great way to memorize the programs. It only worked once during an interview when I have to do a fizzbuzz in PHP for about 5 minutes.

[4urentertainment]

At 5/28/13 12:26 PM, Elitistinen wrote: Professors love to see students erase the whole paper on final exam. They argue that hand writing can give students great way to memorize the programs. It only worked once during an interview when I have to do a fizzbuzz in PHP for about 5 minutes.

But that's still silly because you don't need to memorize anything. The best/useful programmers aren't the ones who can program mundane algorithms quickly or off the top of their head.

[PMMurphy]

Yea the whole test was dumb and stupid.

It was pointless.

The only use it gave me was to give me an A in the course and raise my GPA.

My professor is very old. He teaches computer science like it was taught in his day. So we do these very mundane not very stimulating tasks in a repetitive motion.

Some people learn in this way. Some don't.

All becaue you don't get anything out of it, doesn't mean i don't.

I learned the whole course in 1 day. Took the final exam. Got an A in the course.

He didn't cover a single complicated aspect of any of these concepts.

The only relatively difficult part of the exam was the following.

"On as hash table, you have a mapping function defined as the following"
y = math.abs(math.floor(x));

then he gave some numbers.
Then we had to place it appropriately in 2 conditions of a hash table.

If you skipped all the bonus questions on the exam. That was your hardest task.

My university has tons of students who don't work for anything.

Me and one other student, were the only ones who knew the answer to the above equation.
This is not a freshman level course btw.

[PMMurphy]

At 5/26/13 10:30 PM, sharpnova wrote:

At 5/9/13 09:08 AM, PMMurphy wrote:
But the professor did offer us candy.

Was it at least good candy?

lol idk, it was some kind of chocolate.

[PMMurphy]

At 5/28/13 12:26 PM, Elitistinen wrote:
Professors love to see students erase the whole paper on final exam. They argue that hand writing can give students great way to memorize the programs. It only worked once during an interview when I have to do a fizzbuzz in PHP for about 5 minutes.

LOL

If your professors are looking for handwriting they woulda hated my code.

Also i did my exam in pen.

Instead of erasing my mistakes. I simply just crumbled up sheets of papers everytime i messed up and re did the diagrams.

So ever 2 minutes or so you would hear me in the corner of the room crumbling up a sheet of paper. I filled an empty trash-can of paper.

Before i did this i asked my professor if he cared about trees. He said no :)