Math 213 F1 Final Exam Information

Basic Information

Final Room/Date/Time: The final exam will be on Friday, Dec. 17, 1:30 pm - 4:30 pm, in 161 Noyes (NOTE ROOM). This is the University assigned Final Exam slot for classes meeting 2-3 MWF. As mentioned at the beginning of the semester, the University is very strict in enforcing its Final Exam dates. In particular, you cannot take the Final at a different date/time to accommodate travel plans.
Finals Week Open House/Office Hours:
- Tuesday, 12/7: 5 pm - 6 pm, Open House, 159 Altgeld.
- Wednesday, 12/8: 5 pm - 6 pm, Open House, 159 Altgeld.
- Thursday, 12/9 - Thursday, 12/16: Office Hours, 12 pm - 1 pm, each day, in my office, 241 Illini Hall.
Final Exam Conflict Policy: The University has specific rules on prioritizing conflicts resulting from three consecutive finals. Since our final is on the last slot of the final exam period, this situation can only arise if you have finals on both Friday, Dec. 17, 8 am - 11 am, and Thursday, Dec. 16, 7 pm - 10 pm. In that case, you are entitled to a conflict exam in one of the three classes involved, though most likely not in ours, because of University rules about prioritizing conflicts. The complete rules can be found in Article 3, Part 2 of the Student Code, but they essentially boil down to the following:
1. If one of the classes involved in the conflict has a scheduled conflict exam (ours does not), you should take that exam.
2. If one of the classes involved is giving the final exam at a time different from their designated final exam slot, that class has to accommodate any conflict requests.
3. If one of the finals involved is a "combined" final exam (ours is a "noncombined" exam), that class has to provide conflict exams.
If none of the above cases applies, then the class with the largest number of students is responsible for providing a makeup exam, and you should contact the instructor of that course. The enrollment for our class is less than 35 If none of other two courses involved in the``three consecutive finals'' situation has more than 35 students, then you may be entitled to a makeup final for this class. In this case, you should contact me by email (ajh@illinois.edu) no later than the last day of class, Wednesday, Dec. 8, providing details about the three classes (course/section numbers, final exam times, and any conflict exams offered).

Final Exam content and syllabus

Final Exam syllabus: The Final will be cumulative and cover the material of Midterm Exams 1 - 3, each given approximately equal weight, as well as the material covered after the third midterm (which will include most of Chapter 9 and possibly Section 3.2 and/or parts of Chapter 10). The latter material will account for two or three problems.
For a more detailed syllabus see the following:
Final Exam format: The Final will be about 2 - 2.5 times as long as a midterm and will be worth 200 points. It will have 10 - 15 problems, generally with several parts. The Final Exam problems will be comparable in format, level, and difficulty to the problems on the midterms, and the same rules apply. For example:
- Leave answers to combinatorial problems in "raw", unevaluated form, e.g., involving factorials binomial coefficients, floor functions, etc. Indicate briefly how you arrived at each component in your formula (e.g., by a "bubbled-in" phrase like "pick 2 days out of 366").
- All problems have a simple answer consisting of at most two or three terms of simple shape, if approached in the right way. This simple answer is the one you are expected to derive. A messy sum will not count. (Example: the probability that there are at least 2 sixes in 100 coin tosses can easily be given in very simple form, using the complement rule, and this is the expected solution; by contrast, a sum of 99 binomial probabilities from k=2 to k=100 would not qualify as a simple answer, and would not earn credit.)
- All problems are doable with minimal amount of calculations, using standard techniques, of the type illustrated in the class examples and homework problems. If you get entangled in a lengthy calculation, you are on the wrong track, and it's better to move on to another problem. Continuing would be counterproductive. You won't get credit for answers arrived at by brute force counting.

Tips on preparing for the exam

The final will be comparable in terms of format, level, difficulty, and coverage, to the midterms, so preparing for the final should be not much different from preparing for the midterms. In particular, follow the advice given for the midterms exams:

Start studying early. Try to find someone, or a group, to study with.
Start your prepration with your class notes, make sure you understand the basic concepts and techniques, rework the class examples. The class examples were carefully selected to illustrate the different types of combinatorial and probability problems at a level appropriate for this class.
For additional practice, study the corresponding section in the text, and rework the examples there using the above syllabus as a guide. Note that the examples in the text vary widely in difficulty. Many are very easy warmup problems, but a few are quite difficult, well above exam level. The examples listed in the above syllabus are all of the "doable" kind.
Redo the homework problems (both the graded and non-graded hw), especially those you got wrong, or you weren't sure about. Note, however, that studying homework problems alone will not adequately prepare you for the exam. For example, questions asking for statements of definitions or theorems would not be appropriate for a homework problem, since you could simply look things up, but are suitable for exams. Use the syllabus as checklist and guide for things you need to know on the exam.
Lastly, take advantage of the Open House (see above).

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Last modified: Sun 01 May 2011 02:29:46 PM CDT A.J. Hildebrand