There are two types of exam elements in this course:

• multiple choice tests, and
• an oral exam.

You get one combined grade based on the two parts. The oral exam has heighest weight.

Multiple-Choice Tests

Read through this entire section many days in advance of the first test.

Test Times

TBA

Purpose

Having the multiple-choice tests in the course is a supplement to the oral exam; they are not testing the same things. Whereas the oral exam is primarily about being able to explain algorithms and prove complete results about them - similar to what I do in the lectures, the multiple-choice tests are more about being able to apply algorithms and being able to point to central proof techniques or key elements in the proofs. Thus, to a larger extent, they test the work you do in the exercise classes. If you have been doing the exercises, you are probably well prepared for these tests. But even if you do well in these tests, you are not necessarily well prepared for the oral exam, since the focus is quite different. So even if you do well, study hard for the oral exam as well!

Scheduling

There will be multiple exams throughout the course. The plan is to conduct these using the extra lectures that have been scheduled every second week whenever possible and announce these events more than a week in advance. Thus, the tests are conducted in-class and you have to show up for that class at SDU to take the test.

Format and Expectations

No guarantees, but the plan is to have tests with approximately 10 questions, each of which are multiple-choice with four possible answers of which one is the correct one. The plan is to allow 45-60 minutes for the test. This allows you plenty of time for answering, sometimes after minor computation, provided you are up-to-date on the material and the exercises. Naturally, there is not time for learning the material, if you have not followed the course closely enough.

Equipment and Aids

You need your laptop for connecting to Itslearning and taking the exam. It's your own responsibility that your laptop, your connection to wifi, your browser, etc. works and that you can log in to Itslearning and is a participant in the course. Check beforehand - there's no IT help available! Other than accessing Itslearning, you're not allowed to use the Internet. You may use all other aids (books, notes, programs, etc.), except so-called AI tools which include generative transformers such as ChatGPT and many others; SDU does not allow you to use such aids for exams. I suggest you have pen and paper available for small computations you may want to make along the way.

On the Day

Show up at least 15 minutes before test start so I have time to check your student ID (remember to bring it) and set up. As a courtesy to the other students, do not leave the exam until the end, so you don't disturb your fellow students who want to use all their available time.

Scoring

In this course, we use a more fair multi-choice grading algorithm than you may have seen before, focusing on giving you the best chances of communicating the knowledge you have.

Before beginning the explanation, I want to emphasize that all the question are multiple-choice questions, i.e., there is one correct answer and you receive maximum points only if you select that answer and no other answer.

However, if, for instance, you can rule out two out of four answers, you may select the two answers you think contain the correct answer. If you're right, you will receive a positive score, though of course not the maximum score. Thus, you will be able to get credit for partial knowledge.

Another fairness decision in the grading is that there is no cap at zero, which you may have seen in other courses. Thus, you can get negative points for a question. The fairness considerations behind this decision is that the expected value of guessing should be zero.

Below, you can see the scoring table for a question with four possible answers out of which exactly one is correct. You select a number of answers between zero and four, and either you capture the correct answer or you don't. From those two pieces of information, you can see the score in the table, where numbers are rounded to three decimals.

Captured correct answer	Number of selected answers
	0	1	2	3	4
yes	NA	1	0.5	0.208	0
no	0	−0.333	−0.5	−0.623	NA

Disclaimer

I'm forced to use Itslearning for these tests. It has very limited built-in scoring options and may insist on telling you what it thinks your score is. However, after the exam, I can download an Excel sheet with all the test details, i.e., for each student and each question, I can see exactly which entries were selected. Based on that, I will calculate the correct score using the table above. Thus, if Itslearning gives you a score, it's likely incorrect, but it will probably correctly inform you as to which questions you got right.

Oral Exam

More information will follow later regarding dates, sequence, and room allocation.

We will also give you a lot of advice for how to handle the exam.

 

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