Tues, 15 Oct 2019, 03:48 in preparing for the exam...

My students,

Just a short note to hopefully help you to prepare for the exam.

We have found excellent rooms for taking the exam, so you will not be
sandwiched around a very small writing surface.  The website has the rooms
posted, so please check on which room you should go to.  As I said in class,
you are permitted to bring in three sheets of paper with anything you wish
written on it.  This should enable you to not have to memorize anything.
If you think you will need something, write it down.  The writing must be
in your own handwriting.

We will pass out the data path, the state machine and the instruction set,
so you do not have to waste time writing those down.

Plenty of office hours tomorrow (Tuesday), but none on Wednesday.
My experience with Wednesday, the day of the exam, is that students try
to cram/memorize, hoping they can retain long enough to make use of the
information they have crammed.  I think you will find that does not help.

We have also provided on the website the solution sheet to Problem Set 3.
The purpose of the problem set was to help get you ready for the exam.
Unfortunately, there is no way we could grade it in time, so we have done
the next best thing -- showed you the answers to the problems.

Most important way you can prepare for the exam is to make sure you are
well-rested, that your brain is free to think.  I am going to expect you
to think on this exam.  I am not a big fan of "barf-back" where the students
are asked to barf back the information the professor barfed at them in class.

Also, and I know this one is hard, try to relax.  It is ONLY the first exam.
If you do not do well, it is not the end of the world.  There will be plenty
of later opportunities to show that you understand what is going on.  So,
come to the exam well-rested, and eager (rather than anxious) to show how
much you understand.

Finally, good luck.

I will see you on Wednesday.


Yale Patt