CSCI 544 — Applied Natural Language Processing

Exam study guide

As stated in the syllabus, the in-class exams will contain questions similar to those from the homework assignments and quizzes. This guide is intended to clarify questions about the exams and help students study for them.

When and where are the exams given?

Exams are given in class, at the beginning of the class period (that is, 4 PM). In-class exams are scheduled for 80 minutes, followed by a short break and a lecture on a new topic. The final exam will be taken on-line during the final exam period, and is due on May 7 at 6:30 PM.

What is the best way to study for the exam?

Work through the written homework assignments and quizzes, and compare your answers to the posted solution. Do not take shortcuts: complete each part of each problem, and for those parts that ask for an explanation, write down your explanation as you would on an exam. When comparing your answers to the posted solution, try to be critical in assessing whether your explanation addresses the same issues as the posted solution.

Do I need to study the optional readings for the exam?

The difference between required and optional readings is in the weekly reading quizzes, which are only on the required readings. The exams are not on readings: they are about working through problems and reasoning about them. The readings (both required and optional) are intended to supplement the lectures and help students understand the material better, so they can tackle the problems better. Memorizing and repeating text from the readings is not required for the exam, and is not a substitute for reasoning abut a problem.

What is the material for each exam?

Each exam covers the material taught in class and in the assignments up to the date of the exam. The topics are listed in the syllabus under Schedule.

Are the exams cumulative?

The exams do not directly give problems of a type that was covered by a previous exam, but there may be some cross-bleeding if methods are used in multiple parts of the course. For example, Hidden Markov Models were covered in Exam 1, so they won’t be directly asked about in subsequent exams; but they might appear in Exam 2 in the context of a problem about speech recognition. The final exam is comprehensive, and will cover material from the entire course.

Machine translation was covered in class before Exam 2 but not in the homework assignment. Could it appear in the exam?

Yes. If the exam contains a problem about machine translation, it will be similar to other problems that were seen in the homework assignments.