Wed, 06 Oct 2021, 23:51 Re: Test question

A student writes:


> Good evening, Dr. Patt!
>
> A friend and I were going over the 2019 Fall Exam 1 and were wondering if
> we are allowed to use a calculator to more easily calculate PC offsets when
> writing the machine code for the LC-3 problems, or if you want us to do
> those calculations by hand.
>
> Thank you so much,
> <<Name withheld to protect the student from having to use a calculator>>


Using a calculator instead of computing the offsets by hand may save the
student at most 1.03 minutes during the entire exam.

Calculators can be used for lots of things, some ok, some not ok.  Almost all
students would only use them to do ok things.  But, in the interest of trying
to provide a level playing field on the exam for all students, I would rather
not give those students an edge by using the calculator to do Not-OK things.

Ergo, no calculators in the exam.

Good luck on the exam.

Yale Patt