CS 200 Midterm

[kane_magus]

Ok, so I got my CS 200 midterm back today. I made a 35/80 on it. Bad. It just sucks. The thing is, if I had known he was going to be giving a MAT140 midterm instead of a CS200 midterm, I would have studied for a MAT140 midterm instead of a CS200 midterm. But, alas, I studied for a CS200 midterm, and so got screwed by it, since he actually gave us a MAT140 midterm. I mean, I know that stuff, given some small amount of time for preparation, but it has been two semesters since I took MAT140, and getting hit cold in the face with this stuff on a midterm with no advance warning is not cool at all.

There wasn't a single question about DDA or Bresenham or Mid-point, or any of those line algorithms he went over in class. There was nothing about culling, clipping, or pretty much anything that he went over in class and was on his online notes. No. No, it was all pure math. I think he mentioned the dot product once, in passing. Not that the dot product is hard, really. But I don't recall him mentioning projections at all, though I may be wrong, of course. Oh, and we weren't allowed to use calculators either. No calculators is somewhat understandable, given that there are calculators that can do vector math and the like. On the other hand, when he's giving us numbers like 320/7 to have to deal with, not having a calculator is annoying.

*Sigh*

I have to make at least a 60% on both exams combined to pass the class, regardless of how well I may do on the programming assignments (on the first of which I scored 100%, and the second 95%).

(/bitchy rant)

Comments

[eibra.livejournal.com]

Always sucks when an instructor's test comes out of left field. My surficial processes instructor was that way. His questions wouldn't come out of lecture or out of the book. In fact none of us ever did figure out where he WAS pulling the questions from, it was always really stressful when a test was coming on, cause you needed to study but there was nothing you COULD study really outside of just trying to know everything.

[ex-narumi508.livejournal.com]

http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/index.jsp that's where places like this come in...know what to expect...

so wish i had had that site when i was in college

[eibra.livejournal.com]

In my experience the problem with that kind of site is that people who feel they've been wronged will be more likely to take the time and complain than people who thought the instructor was good will take the time to say so. So they can cast the professor in a bad light. Some of my best professors in college were rated pretty bad at ratemyprofessors, just a couple of guys who thought they could get an easy A who whined about it gave the prof a bad score. Granted if there's enough complaints it's probably a safe bet. I dunno, I guess I just like to reserve judgement until I've met the instructor myself. Some teaching styles work better for different people and all that.