Week 10: My Impressions of Week 9

Week 9 was one of the more uneventful weeks in this course. Perhaps that was because we only had one hour of lecture and no lab due to the ongoing TA strike. The lone lecture was on more advanced binary search tree topics namely the insert and delete functions of the BST node. I felt like they were just an extension of the last few weeks’ lectures. It got me to review BSTs more thinking it would be on the test. While it did not have direct carryover into the test, we did come across a question with a BST that was of lower difficulty so it was a big help there.

           I would assess the difficulty of the test as fair. However, my experience was far from encouraging. After consulting with my classmates after the test on Wednesday, I realized that I made some critical mistakes right from the first question, which asked what the maximum height of a 20-node tree could be. The answer was 20 but a combination of fatigue and butterflies in my stomach caused me to mess up on that question. The BST question I got through no problem mostly because fortunately the answer was very similar to an example I had on my aid sheet. However, the last question concerned linked lists and that really tripped me up. I answered to the best of my abilities but having been introduced to the concepts a mere week earlier, I was not as solid as I would have liked to be. It takes me longer than most people to understand concepts sometimes. The combination of the lack of time and the stress caused self-doubt and confusion while attempting to answer the question. I think I got the general framework from referring to my aid sheet but I know I messed up somewhere. Overall, I was racing against time the entire test and I don’t expect the outcome to be anywhere near how I did in the first test, which I did well on.

           I learned I really need to shore up my understanding of linked lists and binary tree traversals before the final exam. I looked at the syllabus again recently and I noticed that the final exam is worth a whopping 40% of our course mark. Talk about high stakes. I could afford to make mistakes in the midterm because it will only be worth 6% at the end. I have to do everything in my power to make all the right moves when the final exam comes so I can end the school year with a bang and hopefully get into the program.

           For some inspiration, I again scrolled through some slogs. Like Christian from last week, Rod (http://rodcsc148.blogspot.ca/) has written a very nice slog this semester with illustrations and clear and precise explanation of concepts. His most compelling entry was his latest one about his impressions of week 9. He identified the importance of critical and deep thinking before actual coding and appreciated the instructor’s algorithmic approach to implementing the delete function of a BST node. In writing, he said he would take the same approach of the instructor and Rod, I shall do the same. Like me, he found the test to be more than fair, but seems to have experienced more success than I. He credits his success to doing the lab exercises in advance because he found the test questions to be variants of the lab questions. Rod, thank you for pointing that out and I will make sure to prioritize labs when studying. To anyone that actually reads my slog, I would definitely suggest Rod’s slog.

           I would really like to ask my fellow classmates to read my slog (I put quite a bit of thought and work into it) and leave comments. You will make me very happy if you do. I endeavor to do the same.