Student "edition" found at {csi dot journalspace dot com}.

Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

My Computer Systems Organization lecture class had their second long exam on their first meeting for the ninth week of the third term.

Just like the last time, I made three sets of questions for the relatively small sized class.

As soon as the students showed up, they started requesting for an open notes exam, but unfortunately this time I couldn’t comply with their wishes.

This is because I went back to basics, where there were questions asking for the truth tables of the intermediate gates that we have discussed before.

If I allowed them to open their notes then all they needed to do was copy the tables from the notes to get points.

Maybe I will ask them beforehand next time if they want an open notes exam next time. Then I will give them all analysis type questions.

I also gave them something not discussed in class, but was supposed to be intuitive: the truth tables of three input NAND, NOR and XOR gates.

Besides that I asked for the truth table of either a four bit input adder, subtracting circuit or magnitude comparator - only the truth table, no need for the circuit.

Even if they did not memorize this, they would have been able to get it if they understood what the computational circuit was supposed to do.

There was only one complex item calling for them to make a truth table, a K-map and simplified circuits from a function, and this was in relation to alternative gates to use to complete a circuit.

Besides this, I also gave them bonuses of the individual alternative gates (such as NAND to simulate AND) and the truth table of a two address bit multiplexer, which is not supposed to be part of the coverage.

Session 1031 also wasn’t allowed to open their notes. Class dismissed.