================================================= Directions and preparing for Test #3 (Final Exam) ================================================= -Ian! D. Allen - idallen@idallen.ca Mark weight: see the CST8129 course outline As mentioned on the course home page, your final test begins at 11h30 (11:30 AM) on Monday, December 12, 2005 in lab room T127. The final test ends at 14h30 (2:30 PM). Manage your time. The test is in three parts: (1) one set of Multiple Choice (crib sheet only), (2) writing and/or modifying shell scripts on paper (crib sheet only), and (3) writing and/or modifying shell scripts online (open book). Bring two soft pencils (and a very good eraser) for the Multiple Choice part of the test. Each third of the test is worth 1/3 of the mark. One third of the mark means one-third of the time - manage your time. This is a Final Test - all the course material is open to questions, including all exercises, previous tests, and practice tests. Many sample test questions and answers have been made available to you. The chapter guide files also contain specific questions about the important material in the course text book. You may *not* use your notes, text, or computer during the first two parts of the test that are done "closed book", on paper. You may only *boot* the computer to verify that it is fully functional. ------ Part I - closed book, no computer, multiple choice with Crib Sheet ------ Required: two soft pencils (pencil *ONLY*) and a good eraser. The first part of the test is multiple choice questions, filled out in soft pencil on the usual computer-readable blue mark-sense "bubble" sheets. This part is closed book and no computer, except that you may have with you a "crib sheet". For full marks, follow all the directions below. Crib Sheet ---------- *) A crib sheet is one side of a single piece of paper (metric A4 or standard Letter size) filled with anything you want to put there. You may use only one side. You may hand write the paper or you may machine print it with tiny letters - you choose. You can put text or pictures or programs or anything you want there. You can copy the entire course textbook onto the page, if you can read it. Magnifying glasses are permitted. *) You must prepare your own crib sheet. You will submit your crib sheet at the end of the test. People who have copied parts of their crib sheets from other people will have their marks divided by two. Prepare your own crib sheet. *) Put your name on your crib sheet. Answering Questions ------------------- *) Put your full, unabbreviated name on the mark-sense bubble sheet. Use the exact name you gave the Registrar - that's the name the computer is looking for when it matches your name against its database. Use the exact name with which you are registered. Pay attention to the order of Last and First names. Spelling counts. *) I want to measure what you know, not what you don't know. Answer all the questions you know, first. Don't waste time with questions about which you are unsure. Guess the answer or come back to them later. *) Concentrate on your own answers. There are different versions of the test in the room. Your answers will not match the answers of the people around you. That's okay. Relax. Breathe. *) Bring two soft pencils and a good eraser. You will have a full set of multiple-choice questions to answer on a mark-sense bubble sheet. Erase mistakes completely - the mark-sense scanner machine is very sensitive and will reject half-erased answers. In the course notes under the heading "Tests and Exams (with Answers)" you will find many multiple-choice questions (with answers) similar to those I will be using on the upcoming test: Practice Test #3 Questions practiceTest3.txt (text format) practiceTest3.ps (Postscript format) practiceTest3.pdf (Portable Document Format) All three practiceTest files contain the same questions in the same order. Choose the format that suits you. The PDF or PostScript files print best. Each practice test file has the answer key at the end. ------- Part II - closed book, no computer, shell script writing with Crib Sheet ------- In the second part of the test you will write, closed book, no computer, on paper, a shell script. You will use the same Crib Sheet as you used in Part I. You write on paper only. No notes; no computer. Follow the simplified shell script comment style given at the bottom of this file. Here are other time-saving tips: *) Start writing your script *only* on the right hand pages in your test booklets. Put only two or three steps on each page and leave *lots* of white space above and below for corrections. Major corrections can be written on the left hand pages and inserted (using drawn arrows) if you run out of space on the right page. Start on the right; leave lots of space above and below each step; add code on the left had pages only if you need to. Leave lots of space! *) Don't waste time erasing large chunks of your script. Cross it out and start over if you have to. Use erasing only to handle minor corrections. Don't erase entire steps - cross them out and just rewrite them. Your script has to be readable; but, it doesn't have to be beautiful. Crossing out is usually faster and cleaner than erasing and rewriting. *) Even though you are using paper, you are still writing an executable script. Every line you put on the paper must be either a comment or a valid shell script command line. If you want to write notes to me or to yourself on the script pages, use proper shell comments. *) Unix is case-sensitive. Don't write upper-case letters unless you mean to use upper-case letters. There is no such command as "DATE". In the course notes under the heading "Tests and Exams (with Answers)" you will find a sample script question, practiceTest3script, in PostScript and PDF form. The answer file is "practiceTest3script_answer.sh.txt". -------- Part III - online, open text, open notes shell script writing -------- After you have finished and handed in Part I and Part II, you may use your notes, textbook, and computer for the rest of the test. Manage your time - don't spend so long on the first two parts of the test that you run out of time for the third part. You will be required to write and/or modify executable shell scripts online using the VIM editor. Follow the simplified shell script comment style given at the bottom of this file. Part III is online and fully open book, open textbook, open notes, open computer. You may access your own files, not the files of other students. The course notes will remain online in their usual place (under ~alleni). Your sessions will be logged and monitored during the test; do not enter any personal information that you don't want your instructor to see. You will find it useful to have several windows open during the test, so that you can be doing several things at the same time. ================================ Script Style and Rules for Tests ================================ For the shell script sections in Parts II and III, the format of the main part of the shell script you will prepare must look similar to this: # Step 6 date echo "hi there" # Step 7 who ls -l /etc/passwd Each step in the script (except Step 1) must be preceded by exactly one single comment line that starts with '#' that contains a step number comment (only the step number is needed), exactly as you see above. These are the *only* comment lines you need in front of each step. After each single step-number comment line come the shell commands that you use to answer the questions for that step. Missing step comments will cost you marks. Do not put a Step comment as the first line of an executable script. Scripts must start with a correct CST8129 script header that includes internal documentation (one-line description, Syntax, etc.), an interpreter line, and lines to set the shell search path, the default permissions for newly created files, the ASCII sort order, and the single-byte character set. For full marks, follow the full 11-part format used in previous scripts and described in Notes files script_style.txt and script_checklist.txt. The script specifications may allow you to omit some parts of the 11-part format (such as the Assignment Label, which isn't needed on a test); read the actual script directions carefully. Read the directions; don't waste time writing things that aren't required.