4003-380-03: Midterm

The midterm takes place on Thursday, Oct 8, 2009, in class (10:00-11:50am).

• Topics: Study Chapters 3, 4, and 5, and Sections 1.5, 2.4 and 2.5 (you should be comfortable with all material in Chapters 1 and 2 but the midterm will not contain a direct question on that material).
• Midterm format: The midterm will consist of 5 problems, each worth 10 points. The lowest scored problem will be ignored and your grade will be computed as the sum of the best four scores.
• The midterm will be closed book and notes, but you may bring one sheet of letter-sized paper with your own hand-written notes. You may write on both sides.
• One problem will be a proof of nonregularity using the pumping lemma. I recommend the mentoring center for getting practice with this type of proofs. To practice, do exercises 5.23 and 5.24.
• You do not have to memorize proofs from class or the book but you should understand them.
• You should be able to apply the constructions from the proofs, like the subset construction, NFA-Lambda to NFA, union of the languages accepted by two FA's (the cartesian product construction), etc.
• You should be able to do simple proofs. This includes, but is not limited to, proofs by (structural) induction, proofs by contradiction, and proofs of non-regularity.
• The midterm can not be made up except for real emergencies in which case proper documentation (like a doctor's note) will be required. If at all possible, you should contact me prior to the midterm. Oversleeping, cars that don't start etc. do not constitute a valid excuse.
• The midterm is worth 30% (or 25% if your final exam grade is higher than the midterm grade) of your course grade. However, your course grade will never be more than one letter grade higher than the average of your quizzes, midterm, and final. In addition, if the average of your quizzes, midterm, and final is below 55%, you fail the course.
• To get some idea of the format of the midterm and the level of difficulty of the questions, you can look at an old midterm: pdf. This is just to get some idea. The old midterm does not guarantee anything about the topics of the questions on your midterm and it does not guarantee the exact level of difficulty of the questions on your midterm.
• I recommend you to solve the practice midterm on your own before you check the solutions.