You received an exam set in Operating Systems and C. How do you approach it? What is the right mindset, or attitude, to have when producing a solution, and what constitutes a good solution?
Qualification
To qualify for the exam, you need to have gotten approved your submissions to your mandatory assignments. (see course description for details).
Examination
The exam is a 3 week take-home exam. It consists of questions based on your mandatory assignments, as well as concepts and techniques introduced in class. (see course description for details).
Your exam set is available on LearnIT. Pick & solve the exam set specific to your study program.
Submission
You submit your solution in LearnIT.
We expect to see one PDF file containing your full solution. This PDF file is the only thing you will be graded on. Any other files you submit are an optional read for us.
Importantly, we will not crosscheck your solution with your solution to mandatory assignments. Therefore, you must include everything from your mandatory assignment solutions, that is relevant to your exam solution, in your exam solution.
(This is an opportunity for you to make improvements to these relevant parts of your mandatory assignment solution, or to complete those parts if you did not already do so, since all we’ll look at is this one PDF).
Evaluation
We evaluate your solution against the intended learning outcomes of the course (see course description).
These imply a deep understanding of the course concepts. We assess the extent of which you have achieved this, by measuring your ability to explain these concepts.
When facing a question on the exam, do not produce a "minimun" answer (e.g. a short sentence, or a number); that will not convey to us that you have achieved the desired level of understanding, since all explanation, and justification, is missing. Instead, look at the question as an opportunity for you to demonstrate how well you understand the topic of the question.
Define concepts relevant to your answer, and use illustrations, source code, and empirical data to substantiate your answer. Don’t just give us an answer; teach it to us; convince us that you know what you are talking about.
We have included a sample exam solution (from a previous year), to illustrate this expectation. Notice how it defines relevant concepts, and supports the concepts and answers with substantiation, to convince the reader that the student knows what they are talking about.
Quality
We evaluate the correctness of your solution, as well as the quality of writing. Good writing is rigorous, logical, concrete, short, simple, and to-the-point. A correct solution that carries these characteristics indicates that your understanding of the topic is very clear.
Academic Conduct
If your answer incorporates text from (i.e. quotes), paraphrases, or relies on information & observations from some source, then you must cite that source. We recommend the IEEE citation style (e.g. "the thing [42]"). (See academic misconduct).
In other words: You don’t get "points" for other people’s writing. What you get "points" for, is your own original writing. While it is very good to indicate relevant parts of the course material in your answer, you’ll have to explain in your own words too, so we can see that you understand how those sources are relevant.