Midterm Exam Information for ECE 103 (Spring 2009)
Coordinates
The midterm exam will be held on Wednesday, June 17, from 7:00–9:00 pm. There are three rooms for the exam. Please go to the appropriate room based on your surname as follows:
| Surname starts with | Exam room |
| A–I | RCH 103 |
| J–Sha | RCH 105 |
| Shu–Z | RCH 204 |
Allowed materials
You may use a non-programmable, non-graphing calculator on the exam. You may not use the course text, your course notes, or any other written materials.
Please bring your WatCard to the exam for identification.
Content
The exam will cover all of the material covered in class through Friday, June 12. The relevant sections of the text are listed on the lecture schedule.
You are expected to be familiar with every definition and result we covered in class. In particular, you will be asked to prove a least one of the following:
- Proposition 2.1.2
- Proposition 2.1.3
- Proposition 2.3.3
- Theorem 2.5.4
- Theorem 3.1.7
Try to understand the ideas of the proofs rather than memorizing them symbol-by-symbol, as the result may be stated using different notation or wording than you have seen before.
When referring to results from class or the text, you are encouraged to give a description of the result rather than referring to a specific number. For example, to invoke Proposition 2.1.2(i), you could write “by the proposition saying that if a|b and b|c, then a|c, ...”. For major results with common names (such as the Good Characterization Theorem and the Extended Euclidean Algorithm), it is fine to refer to the result by name.
Sample questions
While it is of course a good idea to review the text and your notes, your best preparation for the exam is to do as many practice problems as you can. (For more detailed advice on exam preparation, see the MathSoc page.)
Here is last year's midterm (with solutions). All of the questions are on material that will be covered on this year's midterm.
You can find other recent past exams at the MathSoc Exam Bank. Be aware that the course content can change from year to year, so not all questions will be relevant to the midterm exam. Some of the relevant questions are as follows:
- Spring 2007 midterm: 1, 2(a-c), 6(a,c,d)
- Spring 2007 quiz 1: 1, 2, 3, 5
- Spring 2006 midterm: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
- Spring 2004 midterm: 1, 2, 3, 5(c,d), 7
- Winter 2004 midterm: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5(a,c,d), 6, 7, 10
- Winter 2004 final: 1, 2, 3
- Winter 2003 midterm: 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7
Additional past exams may be available at the EngSoc Exam Bank. Again, be aware that these exams might not be representative of the material we have covered so far this year.
Another source of practice problems is the course text. Problems on material that will be covered by the midterm exam include the following:
- Chapter 1: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 10, 16, 19, 24, 25, 26
- Chapter 2: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, 16, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 29, 30, 31, 47
- Chapter 3: 1, 2, 6