Assignments

There are three categories of assignments, weighted as follows:

• 10% finger exercises
• 20% problem sets
• 70% exams
  • 15% Midterm 1
  • 20% Midterm 2
  • 35% Final exam

These comprise your total numeric score. However, we do not have pre-defined cutoffs for letter grades. Instead, we follow our best judgment to assign grades according to MIT's grade definitions. We strive to consider in whole the work you've submitted and the course staff's interactions with you.

1) Finger exercises

We will release short exercises after most lectures. Their purpose is to help you check your understanding of basic concepts. When you submit, the page will indicate correctness, but not answers, and there is no penalty for repeat submissions. The website will grade your latest submission before the deadline.

We recommend completing finger exercises as soon as possible, ideally within a day of the associated lecture. However, to remove the stress of missing a short deadline, we will accept finger exercise submissions without penalty until Friday, December 5 at midnight. There will be no extensions past this deadline.

2) Problem sets

There will be seven problem sets (psets) throughout the term. These are programming tasks that exercise concepts from lecture on grounded scenarios. They are the main vehicle to help you learn programming skills and computational modeling. Their overall weight is not so high, so as not to penalize heavily for learning from mistakes, but it is in your best interest to take them seriously.

For each pset, we will release initial code as scaffolding, along with test cases to check correctness of various components. When you submit your code file on the pset page, the server will run the same test cases and determine an autograder score; there will be no hidden test cases. Like with finger exercises, you may submit as many times as you like, and we will grade your last submission before the deadline. (Unlike finger exercises, each pset has its own deadline.)

The autograder score is worth 2/3 credit of each pset. The remaining 1/3 comes from a checkoff conversation with course staff. Checkoffs are short (15-minute) interviews during office hours about your code's design and the underlying concepts. We will also give feedback on code style, which we expect you to apply on subsequent assignments.

Checkoffs for a problem set will start the weekday after it is due, and must be completed in about a week (see the calendar). We recommend you complete your checkoff as soon as possible when your work is fresh in your mind. Checkoffs will be given first-come first-serve by available staff. If you are still in the queue at the end of office hours when the checkoff is due, you will not receive credit for the checkoff.

There will be no checkoff for Problem Set 7, which is due the last day assignments may be due; thus, its total weight will be less than that of other psets.

3) Midterms and final

There will be two in-class midterm exams on Monday, October 6 and Wednesday, November 12. There will also be a cumulative final exam during finals week, to be scheduled by the registrar.

All exams are closed-book, on paper, and hand-graded. No additional resources are allowed: this means no notes, no "cheat sheets," and no electronics.