Computer Science and Written Coding Exams

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Does anyone doing undergraduate Computer Science, have end of year exams where programming code answers have to written out on paper rather than using Moodle? How would they mark them and check syntax or program logic? Good luck to everyone taking exams and thanks for your answers.

Reply 1

danrossuk

2

Original post by Trick_Toker

Does anyone doing undergraduate Computer Science, have end of year exams where programming code answers have to written out on paper rather than using Moodle? How would they mark them and check syntax or program logic? Good luck to everyone taking exams and thanks for your answers.

I've just finished year 2 of CS at Teesside Uni, and so far the only written exam I have had was Computational Problem Solving in year 1. Everything else has been assignment based.

Reply 2

Lancaster Student Ambassador

Official Rep

18

Original post by Trick_Toker

Does anyone doing undergraduate Computer Science, have end of year exams where programming code answers have to written out on paper rather than using Moodle? How would they mark them and check syntax or program logic? Good luck to everyone taking exams and thanks for your answers.

Hello,

While at Lancaster we do not have paper-based programming exams anymore, in the past they used to be written on paper.
Usually, however, the main testing point is your understanding of how to apply a certain algorithm to solve a problem, or your usage of programming concepts, e.g. being able to use tail recursion to perform a required operation in a functional programming language or your ability to use generics, method overloading, polymorphism, encapsulation and other key OOP principles.
Therefore they look at the understanding and correct implementation of those ideas, rather than if the code is syntactically perfect. They obviously don't transcribe every student's code to check if it compiles, and nor do they penalise minor syntax errors.

This is how it worked at our university before we transitioned to computer-based exams.
I hope this helps!

Polina,
Lancaster University SCC Ambassador.

Computer Science and Written Coding Exams

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