Database Systems COMP3311 23T3

Happy Holidays

Posted by John Shepherd Tuesday 19 December 2023, 08:43:58 AM, last modified Tuesday 19 December 2023, 04:34:48 PM.

Due to a bug in the script to calculate final exam marks, all the submitted exam marks were lower than they should have been by a mark or two. I have fixed the script, recalculated the exam marks, uploaded them into Astra, and this will flow through to final marks in MyUNSW soon.

For most people, this means a couple of extra marks. For some people, it means no extra marks. Nobody will have less marks.

If you were a borderline fail, you may find yourself now a borderline pass. Happy Xmas.

Given the mess I've made of COMP3311 this term, I've decided that CSE would be better off if I stopped teaching courses. Thank you and good night. F**k it. They won't let me leave. Suggestion: avoid any future courses I'm teaching.

Scaling the Final

Posted by John Shepherd Tuesday 05 December 2023, 03:12:53 PM.

Regardless of any petition, I always look at the marks distribution for the final exam. If it looks like it might have been too difficult, I'll scale up. If it looks about right, I won't scale.

Final Exam

Posted by John Shepherd Sunday 03 December 2023, 05:09:30 PM.

The final exam is tomorrow!

Before the exam:

• Get a good night's sleep
• Make sure you know your assigned time and location
• Remember to bring your photo ID (student ID preferred)
  • Driver's licence/passport is a tolerable substitute
• Aim to arrive early

During the exam:

• Use your reading time well
  • Decide what questions you want to tackle first
• Submit as you complete each question
• Keep an eye on how long you're spending on each question
  • Move to another question if spending too long

For the SQL/PLpgSQL/Python questions, you may find it useful to re-use views and functions from earlier questions in answering later questions. Keep in mind that we expect the code for each question to be self-contained. If you want to re-use, copy and paste.

When marking, we create a new database from scratch, load the code for the question, and then run the tests. In the exam, the check script loads the code for the question into the existing database. Not quite the same.

Good Luck.