Exams
My exams are generally cumulative: anything we’ve covered in the course up to the point at which you take the exam is fair game. I may also include questions about assigned mandatory readings, homework assignments, or any other class content that you are supposed to have viewed. Notably, this does not generally include the “Your Choice” readings: I don’t expect you to have read all of those, so questions about them will always offer you a choice of which reading to answer a question about. See the “Your Choice” readings page for more information about how the “Your Choice” readings will be assessed on the exams.
My exam design philosophy is to aim for a wide range of question difficulties: I try to include both some questions that I think every student should get right and some questions that I think are difficult enough that only those who have deeply understood multiple concepts that we covered in class will even be able to answer them in a reasonable way, and everything in between.
To help you prepare for this semester’s exams, below you can find links to exams from previous semesters, all of which have solutions (“keys”). Some of these exams cover the whole course (anything labeled “final”), so you’ll want to be careful when studying for the midterm—not everything on these exams will have been covered by then. In addition, keep in mind that the set of topics changes a bit semester-to-semester, so it’s possible that these exams include some topics that we didn’t cover, and that your exams this semester might include topics that these exams ignore. These exams are provided “as-is” to help you study, but please don’t over-rely on them.
I strongly recommend that before looking at a “key” for one of these exams, you sit down and attempt the exam yourself, under something like exam conditions (quiet room, no interruptions, etc.): this will help you more to prepare for this semester’s exam than just reading the solutions.