CIS 110 Exams

CIS 110 exams are governed by rules designed to prevent distraction to other exam takers. We ask that you follow these rules not only to maintain the integrity of the exam, but also out of respect for your fellow students.

General Rules

• You must take the exam at the scheduled time and location unless you have received explicit permission otherwise. Oversleeping and late arrival are not valid reasons to make up an exam.
• Students entitled to special accommodations must arrange to take their exam at SDS.
• You will be required to submit a doctor's note if you miss an exam due to illness.
• You may not use any notes, books, papers, calculators, cellular phones, laptop or tablet computers, smartwatches, or recording devices in the exam. Doing so constitutes a violation of the Penn Code of Academic Integrity.

Before the examination

• Turn off cell phones and other noise-making devices before entering the exam room. If your phone rings or vibrates in the exam room, you will receive a significant point deduction.
• Exams begin on time. If you are more than 15 minutes late to your scheduled exam, you will not be seated. In no event will you receive extra time to compensate for arriving late.
• When you arrive, a proctor will seat you, starting in the front of the room and working back. You may not choose your own seat. Space permitting, we seat students in alternate seats, two rows out of three. This ensures that proctors can reach everyone quickly and quietly to answer questions during the exam. If you are left-handed, proctors will help you find a left-handed desk to sit at.
• You may not leave the exam room during the first 30 minutes or last 15 minutes of the exam. Additional restrictions may be imposed if you are taking a makeup exam.
• Food and drink are forbidden. Spills are extremely distracting to your fellow students.

Instructions

• You may use pen or pencil of any clearly visible color. You can even use multiple colors if you find that helpful.
• If you require extra space you may use the backs of the exam pages or the extra sheets at the end of the exam. Proctors can provide additional paper if required. Clearly indicate on the question page where the graders can find the work that you would like graded.

After the examination

• You must stop writing as soon as time is called. If you do not stop writing promptly, you may receive zero points on the exam.
• You must attach all paper, including scratch paper, to your exam when you submit it. We are not responsible for any loose pages of your exam. Proctors will provide staplers to attach any additional sheets.
• You should prepare to provide photo identification when you submit your exam: please bring your PennCard.
• Please submit your examination paper to the correct pile as instructed by the proctors.
• You are prohibited from taking any paper out of the exam room.
• You may not discuss the exam until after you are told that all students have taken it.

Common midterm details

• Date Thursday 13 October
• Time 7pm - 9pm
• Location Your exam location is based on the first letter of your last name. You must go to your assigned room, because every room will be full. There will be neither a seat nor an exam for you in any other room.
  
  

  Your last name start with	Go to room
  A – D	Chem 102
  E – J	David Rittenhouse Laboratory (DRL) A1
  K – N	Leidy Labs 10
  O – Z	Fagin Auditorium

Please do not bring the following items. You will not be allowed to use them.

• Calculators of any description
• Any notes or books; any paper, even if blank
• Food or drink (unless medically necessary)
• Cellular phones, laptop or tablet computers, smartwatches, or recording devices

Regrade Requests

Regrade requests must be submitted via Gradescope:

• The deadline for regrade requests is Thursday, November 3, 11:59PM.
• Regrade requests must be specific as to what you believe is mis-graded and why your answer is correct. For example, "Question 3(b) is marked wrong, but my answer is correct according to the answer key." Or, "It looks like you misread by curly braces as parentheses."
• As a correlary to the previous point, long explanations of what you were thinking or how you misread the questions are very unlikely to be approved. "I think the number of points that was deducted is too harsh," is even less likely to be approved.
• If you're not sure why you lost points, submit a regrade request asking for clarification. Just like on homeworks, this lets us look at your graded answer without distraction so we can give you more feedback.
• Do not combine regrade requests for multiple questions; submit separate regrade requests for each question so we can handle them properly within Gradescope.

Current and previous exams

Please remember that the selection and order of topics varies somewhat from semester to semester, so previous exams may include questions that are not relevant to this semester, and they may not cover all topics that may be examined this semester.

Please post on Piazza if you suspect there is a correction needed in any of the above files.

Common final details

The final exam is on

• Date Thursday 8 December
• Time 7pm-9pm
• Location Your exam location is based on the first letter of your last name. You must go to your assigned room, because every room will be full. There will be neither a seat nor an exam for you in any other room.
  
  

  Your last name start with	Go to room
  A – D	Chem 102
  E – J	David Rittenhouse Laboratory (DRL) A1
  K – N	Leidy Labs 10
  O – Z	Fagin Auditorium

Makeup requests

You must have a valid conflict with another exam to request a makeup. Leaving early for the break is not a valid reason to take a makeup.

• If you have three exams on the same day, you must request a makeup of your middle exam in accordance with University policy. We will not be able to give you a makeup in CIS 110 for this situation.
• We cannot offer you a makeup exam because of flight conflicts. In accordance with University policy, you will need to reschedule your flight.
• Makeup finals cause a great deal of extra work and are very problematic. We will not approve any request lightly.
• If you have a conflict with another course, including any LPS course that may hold its final then, you must make a reasonable effort to reschedule that exam before we will approve your request. However, you must also request the CIS 110 makeup in time, even if it takes time to find a solution.
• Post a private questions to Piazza in the final_makeup_request folder no later than Friday, September 23. Include the reason for your request in your post, and your availability on Friday December, 9; Saturday, Decemeber 10; Sunday, December 11; and Monday, December 12. Give the reasons for every conflict.
• We will respond to your post after September 23 to tell you if you have permission to take the makeup final, and with the time and location.
• After Friday, September 23, we will only authorize makeups in exceptional circumstances, with supporting documentation.

Please do not bring the following items. You will not be allowed to use them.

• Calculators of any description
• Any notes; any paper, even if blank
• Food or drink (unless medically necessary)
• Cellular phones, laptop computers, tablets, or smartwatches

Topics covered

• What will be on the exam? Anything we have covered in lecture, homeworks, the reading assignments, and/or recitation is fair game for the midterm. It is reasonable to assume that topics we have dealt with more extensively are likely to feature more prominently than topics we have only touched on, although anything is possible.
• Will X be on the exam? Please refer to the previous section. To ensure all students receive identical information about what will and will not be on the exam, course staff have been instructed to refer students to this page without commenting further.

Previous exams

Please remember that the selection and order of topics varies somewhat from semester to semester, so previous exams may include questions that are not relevant to this semester, and they may not cover all topics that may be examined this semester.

Please post on Piazza if you suspect there is a correction needed in any of the above files.