4005-515: Midterm

The midterm will take place on TBA.

More info:

• The midterm will cover material from the first 5 weeks. The specific topics are:
  • Asymptotic notation
  • Recurrences and divide-and-conquer algorithms (sample problems: MergeSort, Select)
  • Linear and O(n log n) algorithmic ideas (sample problems: Point inside a polygon, Area of a Polygon, Convex hull)
  • Greedy algorithms (sample problems: two variants of the Interval Scheduling problem, divisible Knapsack, Huffman)
  • Dynamic programming (sample problems: Weighted Interval Scheduling, Longest Increasing Subsequence, Knapsack, Longest Common Subsequence, Chain Matrix Multiplication)
  There will be roughly one problem from each of these topics. There will definitely be a problem on asymptotic notation and another problem on dynamic programming.


• The midterm consists of 5 problems, each worth 10 points. I will drop the lowest-scored problem and the remaining four problems contribute to the overall score.


• The midterm is closed book, notes, laptops, cell-phones, etc. However, you might bring one letter-sized "cheat-sheet" in your own handwriting (no printouts or photocopies).


• Here is a sample midterm for you to practice on. As this is a newly compiled practice midterm, there might be typos. Please let me know if you find any issues. I hope to post the solutions of the practice midterm soon... I recommend to solve the practice midterm first and only after you are done, check the solutions.
  Disclaimer: The practice midterm does not indicate the difficulty of the actual midterm.