Final on December 16th

Dear Students,

The Final Exam will be held on Monday, December 16th, 2024:

• Time: 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
• Location: Amphitheater A8, on the first floor of the David Rittenhouse Lab

The format of the exam will be a pen-and-paper exam, with an optional cheatsheet (see below for details). There will be a PrairieLearn component released after the exam, which is optional and worth 25% of the overall grade, to be completed on your own time by Friday, December 20th, 2024 at 11:59PM.

Please read on, there will be a review session on Thursday, December 12th, 2024 at 5:15PM over Zoom, which will be dedicated to reviewing the material covered throughout the course.

Link/password to be posted on Ed Discussion.

The exam will cover all the following topics of the course:

• Sets
• Relations
• Functions
• Counting
• Probability
• Logic
• Proofs
• Graphs

Although this may seem like a lot of material, this material builds on itself: For instance, in the context of proofs, you have often been using set notations and set concepts—so you have been using concepts from the beginning of the course in the context of proofs.

There will be no “gotcha” questions. The point is not to remember difficult edge cases, but to see if you are fluent in mathematical notations so you can understand the discussions in CIS 5090 and CIT 5960.

Please expect a lot of questions like the “Mathematical Notations” exercise of midterm 1. It will be important that you know how to read math.

To help you prepare for the exam, the following resources are available:

• Sample Exam (Fall 2023 Final)
  • ⚠️ Please note solutions for this sample exam will not be provided, however you can request the TAs help with your solutions by posting publically on the class forum.
• Slido Polls Lectures 00–10
• Slido Polls Lectures 11-23
• Homework Solutions: Available upon request here (may take up to 24 hours to fulfill)

The review session on Thursday, December 12th, 2024 at 5:15PM over Zoom (password to be posted on Ed), will be dedicated to reviewing the material covered throughout the course, and will be recorded.

As previously, we will provide all necessary formulas at the back of the exam, as memorization is not the focus.

You should be able to complete the exam without bringing anything.

However, you are also allowed to bring a cheat sheet, following these rules:

• Format: Two (2) sheets of paper, both sides, handwritten or printed, any font size.
  • You can reuse the sheet from Exam 1 + create one (1) new sheet, or you can create two (2) entirely new sheets.
• Bonus Opportunity: Submit a scanned copy of your cheat sheets for a 1-point bonus.
  • Cheatsheets submitted for Exam 1 are eligible for credit, if you reuse them for this exam.
  • If n students collaborate on a cheat sheet, each student will receive 1 ⁄ n points.
  • Submission: On Gradescope (the link may not be currently active, but it will be by the time of the exam).
• Exception: You may use the Amazon reference sheet I introduced, but if you do, you cannot bring an additional cheat sheet.

The afternoon following the written exam, we will release optional PrairieLearn questions worth 25% of the overall grade. This component is optional, and your final exam grade will be calculated as follows:

• Final Exam Grade = max(written exam grade, (75% × written exam grade) + (25% × PrairieLearn grade))
• Deadline: The PrairieLearn questions will be due by Friday, December 20th, 2024, at 11:59 PM.

If you have a conflict or are unable to attend the exam due to illness or other reasons, please let us know as soon as possible by submitting this form. Provide as much availability as possible, and we will work with you to arrange an alternative, though if no arrangement can be found, the make-up will have to occur in the first week of the Spring 2025 term.

You do not need to simplify your answers during the exam. It’s acceptable to leave expressions unsimplified (e.g., you don’t need to compute “2 + 2”).

• Arrival: As much as possible, please arrive by 5:50 PM to get settled before the exam begins.
• No Leaving Early: To ensure everybody can take the exam in a quiet environment, we ask that you remain in the room until the end of the exam. If you finish early, you can use the remaining time to review your answers.
• Anonymity: Do not write your name anywhere on the exam. Instead, please write your (numerical) Penn ID on the front page where requested. We will grade exams anonymously to ensure fairness.
• Electronic Devices: Set cell phones to “Do Not Disturb” mode. Calculators are not permitted.
• Answer Space: Write your answers within the designated spaces. We will not check the back of any pages.
• Scratch Paper: A blank sheet is provided at the end of the exam for rough work. You may also use the back of any sheet if needed.
• Time Management: Some questions may be more challenging. Do not spend too much time on any single question.
  • In the CIT 5920 exams, the easier questions are worth many more points than the harder questions.
  • Particularly difficult questions will be identified as such (though of course it is always possible we misjudge perceived difficulty).
• Explanations: Unless specified “No explanation needed,” please provide a brief rationale for your answers.

• Practice: Focus on practicing problems related to the exam topics. Use the PrairieLearn exercises to ensure you are comfortable with the material.
• Textbook Recommendation: For additional practice, consider “A Brisk Walk Through Discrete Math” by Stephen Davies (or check out our other textbooks). Relevant chapters include:
  • Sets and Functions
  • Counting
  • Probability (for the bonus question)
• Extra Practice:
  1. Attend the review recitation on Thursday, 11th 2024.
  2. Review examples from the lecture, and copy-paste the lectures in ChatGPT v4 and above to generate more examples.
  3. Practice with the PrairieLearn questions for HW1, HW2, HW3, HW4, HW5 and HW6.
  4. Review the Slido polls from the lectures.
  5. Attempt the sample exam (see Exam 3 from Fall 2023 in the Resources above) under timed conditions.
  6. Revisit homework assignments, comparing your work to the solutions and class examples.
     • Focus on areas where you lost points to understand and correct mistakes.

Please do not attempt to cheat on this exam.

As mentioned in class, we will factor the difficulties and disjointedness of the semester in the way we translate final grades from percents to letters.

Finally, please do not discuss the exam, keep the exam subject or share it with anybody after the exam, until the solutions are released to everybody.

Please let us know if there’s anything we can do to help you prepare. You can reach us on the class forum or attend our office hours posted on the schedule page. We are here to support you.

Good luck with your studying, and we wish you success on the exam!

Warm wishes,

Prof. Lumbroso.