Welcome to the CS350 Algorithms & Complexity at PSU
March 20 Update: A link to the final exam grade rubric is posted in the schedule tab under readings for Week 10 or click here.
The rubric contains sample solutions to each question. It’s possible that it’s not the only correct answer, as correctness depends heavily on the reasoning provided.
The grade guidelines are not complete, just examples to the graders for typical mistakes or special cases.
March 19
Hey everyone, an update: we are currently grading the final exams as well as HW4. I will put a link to the final exam grade rubric in the schedule tab of the course website tomorrow afternoon, if you’re interested in what solutions and grading guidelines to the problems look like. You can probably gauge roughly how well you did with that. (Note that most problems have multiple acceptable solutions and grading relied mostly on the reasoning you provide.)
The plan is to complete all grading by the end of the weekend. So continue to check the course website for that update.
Once all of the exams are graded, we’ll put your originals in the homework filing cabinet in the CS department, (it’s the wide black filing cabinet right outside the mail room), where you can pick it up at your leisure. I’m flying out to China to teach at the end of the month, so if you have questions, comments, or discussion, email will be the best way to reach me after that.
Again, thanks for a great term. I learned a lot, and I hope you also learned a lot and continue to develop algorithms design and analysis understanding.
Feburary 28
Finals are coming up. As with the midterm, Dan Leblanc’s CS350 practice final seems pretty reasonable. It can be found here.
Feburary 6
Reminder: Midterm is on Monday Feb 11th. HW2 still due before class begins that day. You may bring and use a calculator on the midterm. You may also bring a handwritten (both sides) standard A4 or 8.5x11” sheet of notes to the midterm.
Feburary 4
Class is cancelled due to potential for unsafe travel conditions after the later evening class. Details are in the email I sent out. We’ll move the midterm review to Wednesday and the midterm to next Monday. HW due dates haven’t changed.
Feburary 3
I’m keeping an eye on the weather for Monday. Since both of our sections are evening sections, icy road conditions are a concern once the temperatures drop for the evening and administration doesn’t typically announce a closures after 2PM. If it turns out that there is real risk of ice Monday evening, then we’ll cancel class and move the midterm review to Wednesday and the midterm to next Monday. If that happens, I’ll announcement it here, on our Slack channel, and via email as early as it makes sense to.
Feburary 1
All HW1s should have been graded. You may resubmit any problems that you lost points on. Your feedback should tell you how many points you’ve lost on a particular problem and may include a general comment as to what went wrong. Most questions are worth 2 points. Some like problem 2 are divided into two parts (show the lower bound and show the upper bound to show the tight bound), and each part is worth 2 points. You either got 0, 1, or 2 points off on each graded part of the homework. So if you resubmit problems that you lost points on, you may get at most 1 point back for that problem. So there are three possibilities:
- You lost 1 point on a 2 point problem. You resubmit the correct solution and now have full credit for that problem.
- You lost 2 points on a 2 point problem. You resubmit the correct solution and now you have 1 point for that problem.
- You lost some amount of points on a problem. You resubmit an incorrect solution and you end up with the same points for that problem.
You must resubmit your incorrect solutions prior to 4:40 PM on Monday 2/4.
January 27
Midterm is next week! Dan Leblanc’s CS350 practice midterm seems pretty reasonable. It can be found here
January 4
Announcements should show up on this home page. Until then, have a look at the syllabus.