Exam FAQ

The information on the Exam Guide page takes precedence, but aligns with all of the information below. If you see any inconsistencies, please make a private piazza post and the staff will directly address it.

You are not expected to read through everything below, this is just for your reference if you have a question that you can't find the answer too. We highly recommend you CTRL-F search this text.

1. How do exams work? - Review the Exam Guide, course syllabus, and exam release notes
2. When does the exam open? - Check the course schedule. Exams are released on the date listed at 1200 UTC. Remember, UTC is a 24-hour clock.
3. Can I take the exam earlier/later? - No, sorry. We are developing and testing the exam right until the release date. On the tail end, we need to close the exam and get solutions out to students. If there are circumstances that result in your being unable to take the test, you need to make a private piazza post to discuss this with the TA's ahead of time. It's a lot easier to resolve ahead of time rather than after.
4. You said the exam time limit is X number of hours but the course schedule says it's open for 5 days - You have X number of hours to complete the exam once you open it, or until the exam window closes, whichever comes first. That means if you start the exam at 1150 UTC on the final date, you will have only 10 minutes to complete it.
5. Is there a "best time" to take the exam when TAs will be around? - TAs cannot assist you with the exam other than for technical issues. That being said, TAs are scheduled from 8 am Eastern Time to 11 pm Eastern Time. You are welcome to take the exam outside of those hours. Any issues encountered when a TA isn't around will be resolved when TAs come on duty. Please see “Getting Support from TAs”
6. When/where will my grade be posted? - As with Notebooks, Vocareum is the source of truth. If you have submitted and see the points accumulated in the "Grades" pane on the right-hand side of the screen, we have it. The finalized scores will be available on your LMS (Canvas for OMSA students and edX for VMM students) after the exam window has closed. They may show up sooner. If you see a lower score on your LMS than you saw in Vocareum, it will get updated.
7. How many times can I submit my exam? - As many times as you want to. We recommend that you SUBMIT AFTER EACH EXERCISE! There is no excuse for not doing this.
8. What if my code passes in the notebook but fails when I submit? - Your solution must pass the autograder to earn credit. See the Autograder section of the Exam Guide.
9. How do I show my room to the proctoring software? - Either rotate the camera or use a mirror.
10. What if I need help during the exam? - Please see “Getting Support from TAs” Do not make any public posts discussing exam material in any way! Doing so will be considered a violation of the Honor Code.
11. How are exams graded? - Exactly like the homework notebooks. You submit your work to the Autograder, and it gives back a score. The autograder is the final arbiter of credit. We will not manually grade your work. If you choose to work outside of Vocareum it is your responsibility to get your code to work in Vocareum and submit it. See the Grading section of the Exam Guide.
12. Can I get an exercise manually graded? - No; see Requests for Manual Grading of the Exam Guide
13. Can I get partial credit for an exercise? - No; see Partial Credit of the Exam Guide
14. How do I use a local IDE for the exam? - You are welcome to work locally but we don't officially support it and cannot help you. On top of spending time getting everything downloaded and arranged properly, there may be differences in packages and configurations that result in code running differently than in Vocareum. Your code must run and pass the Autograder in Vocareum. There are no exceptions because "it ran locally". We do not recommend this during exams. The benefits a local IDEs may provide are not worth the time required to set it up unless you are experienced in setting up local IDEs.
15. What is meant by "open-book, open-note, open-internet?" - You can look at any physical book, any physical or digital notes you have taken, all of the course materials, and anything on the internet. You may not communicate with another person to seek help (no posting to online forums, IM software, screen-share, etc) and you may not view any solutions which may have been posted online. See the Exam Guide page under Honor Code violations and Exam Rules.
16. Can we see old exams? Yes. Practice problems are posted after all of the relevant material for the exam has been released.
17. What is allowed during the exam? Please check the Rules page
18. What happens if I cause a flag in the proctoring software? - There are many allowed behaviors which may cause proctoring flags (leaving the camera's view, noise from family/pets/etc, looking at physical notes). We review them, but unless there is evidence that you are communicating with another person about the exam or viewing solutions, we donot raise a violation. Despite the horror stories about online proctoring which you may have heard, we have been using these services for several years without any "false positives".
19. I saw someone discussing the test (format, questions, solutions) - You are not penalized for stumbling upon anything, but you should report it to the teaching staff in a private piazza post. Please provide screenshots as well. We don't want anyone to have an unfair advantage and take all reports seriously.
20. I have an urgent question, can I reach out to the staff via Canvas, Email, Linkedin, Personal Email, Facebook, or any non-Piazza platform? - No, Piazza is the only platform we monitor. Please make sure your private posts have 'instructors' listed as people who can view it, not specific ones only. Please also keep in mind we get a large number of posts around exam time, so urgent requests will be answered as quickly as we can. If possible, please make any requests ahead of time.
21. Can I google the whole question? - Yes but you may not get good results. You'll probably have more luck breaking it down into discrete steps.