Study Guide for Midterm

CS 300: Applied Symbolic Computation
Instructor: Jeremy Johnson 
Exam date: (In class on Thur. Nov. 2)

Exam Topics

The point of this exam is to make sure that everyone understands the basics of Maple and is capable of using Maple to explore the performance of an algorithm. The exam will reinforce concepts explored in assignments one and two.

There will be four questions: (1) use of the sum command to find a closed form to a sum the arises commonly in algorithm analysis, (2) The use of Maple to empirically explore the growth rate of an algorithm, (3) write a simple recursive program and use plot to visualize its behavior, and (4) write down a recurence relation for the cost of a given recursive function and use rsolve to solve the recurrence relation.

Maple Commands

You should be comfortable using the following Maple commands and syntax.
  1. sum, diff, simplify
  2. plot, pointplot
  3. Lists, accessing elements of a list, seq
  4. Maple procedures, conditionals, and loops.
  5. Writing and understanding recursive procedures.
  6. rsolve

Exam Rules

  1. The exam will be designed to take one hour and ten minutes (10 minutes each for the first two problems and 25 minutes eaqch for the second two problems)
  2. The quiz will use Maple and will be in the form of a Maple worksheet.
  3. If you have a laptop with Maple installed, please bring it to class. For those of you without laptops, a laptop will be provided.
  4. Maple help may be used (is encouraged) and you may use worksheets from class lecture notes. Other resources are not allowed.
  5. The quiz must be done individually