How to Take Quizzes

A few pointers and advice on taking quizzes. They are worth only 35% of your grade, but it might be a difficult part for some of you. Here is how I think it best to handle them.

1. Print out the quiz first. Read it over, perhaps guessing at the answers.
2. Then read the relevant pages in the texts, answering each question as you encounter the spot in the text that addresses the question.
3. For those (few) that are not answered in the reading, look over your class notes, my notes for each lecture, revisit the Lab(s).
4. Feel free to search the Web, read in other books--anything but ask another person for the answer. (I.e., the quizzes are "open book" where the book includes the web and any other nonhuman source you can find.)
5. Sometimes you may have to just think about what should be the answer, without finding it anywhere.
6. Feel free to write me (105b@cs.smith.edu) with clarification questions.
7. Only actually take the quiz when you have it completely figured out, with all answers written on your sheet. (It is not timed, and until you hit Submit, I never see it.)
8. It may be harder than you initially think to get everything correct. It will usually not suffice to know roughly what's going on--often you will have to know precisely what's going on, the precise meaning of technical terms, etc.
9. Answers will not be posted until Tuesday afternoons (or even later if for some reason several students are late taking the quiz).
10. I often make grading errors, misword a question, etc. It is unavoidable. Whenever I do, I will adjust the grades accordingly. That is why what you see upon "submit" is a tentative grade, subject to revision (always only upward!).