# Introduction

The Department of Computer Science has course exemption examinations available for CMSC 131, 132 and 250 and 212.These examinations aid in determining the most appropriate initial placement of a student into CMSC courses at UMCP and cannot be used to receive credit (ie they are not credit-by-examinations). Prior to taking a particular CMSC course, a student must have all prerequisite courses on their UMCP transcript, or they must have passed the departmental exemption examination for the prerequisite course(s) in question.

A student is allowed to attempt the exemption examination for a particular course only once. Also, a student may not take a CMSC exemption exam once they have enrolled in a CMSC course here at UMCP - "enroll" is defined for purposes here as "having taken the course and attended it beyond the end of the schedule adjustment period". Typically an incoming student will take the exemption exam during their orientation. No sample exams are available and the contents of the exams may require writing code, tracing code, answering questions, solving problems... The exams are all paper exams and may last anywhere from 60 to 90 minutes. Not all topics listed below may actually appear on each exam. There is no charge to take a CMSC exemption exam and only one exam may be taken during each testing date. Additionally it should be noted that introductory CMSC courses here at the Univ. of MD, College Park may require 5-7 substantial programming projects to be written independently by each student throughout the semester. Written exams, by their very nature, cannot fully assess ones capability to complete an electronic program which contains 100's (to 1000's) of lines of code (100's for CMSC 131 projects, to 1000's for CMSC 212 projects). Students placing into CMSC 131, 132 or higher should be prepared to write computer programs on the order of several hundred lines of code (for the 1st 132 project) or a thousand or so lines of code (for the 1st 212 project). If you have any questions after reviewing these webpages you may contact a CMSC advisor during any of the posted advising hours.