CS & E Course Assessment Form
CS 326
Instructor: Mircea Nicolescu
Semester/year: Spring 2006
The purpose of this form is to document the achievement of student outcomes in the courses that you
instruct. Answers to the questions below should cite supporting evidence from your own observations,
student performance on assignments and examinations, student self assessment forms, and other
feedback.
First time course taught by this instructor
x
Course taught previously
Course prerequisite(s): CS 302

Were the students adequately prepared by prerequisite courses? Yes x
No

Were changes implemented since the last time this course was taught?
Yes x
No
If yes, what changes were made since the last time this course was taught?
Did these changes improve the course?
Changes made since last time
Effects of change
Avoid ambiguous answers to homework
questions. No negative comments have been
received in regard to homework assignments.
Better understanding, help students learn from
Instructed grader to provide more feedback on their own mistakes. A significant increase in
homework assignments.
student performance has been observed,
especially on “traditionally” difficult topics.
Revised homework assignments, some
questions had been too general.
 Are changes called for the next time this course is taught?
Yes
If yes, what changes should be made the next time this course is taught?
Changes recommended for next time
Devote more time to each programming
language.
x
Purpose of changes
Expand the hands-on experience in
programming, on a wide range of
programming language paradigms.
Most useful comments from students
Very good course content and instructor performance, effective class participation. Spend
more time on each language.
No
Achievement of Student Outcomes
Did the students demonstrate achievement of the student outcomes specific to this course? In the table
provided, cite evidence using student responses on the student self assessment questions and evidence
from your direct assessment of student work.
If sampling, please indicate the approximate percent of the class sampled:
100
Mapping between Student Outcomes – Course Outcomes – Instruments of Assessment
CSE
Student
Outcomes
1
11
3
9
Student
SelfAssessment
Course Outcomes
Instruments of
Direct Assessment
by Instructor
4.167
Students are capable to understand
and apply formal methods in
language specification and design
(context-free grammars, regular
expressions, parse trees, scanning,
parsing).
Midterm – pb. 6
4.000
Students demonstrate a thorough
understanding of the fundamental
issues in language implementation
(naming, control flow, data types,
subroutines), and make more
effective use of languages they
already know.
4.333
Students are able to make use of
the fundamental concepts learned
in this course for improving their
programming skills.
4.450
Students emerge better prepared to
choose the best language for
particular problems, to understand
different programming paradigms
(functional, logic, object-oriented),
and to learn new languages quickly
and completely.
Direct Assessment
3.9
Midterm – pb. 3
3.7
Final – pb. 4
Final – pb. 8
4.0
Midterm – pb. 9
3.6
Final – pb. 11
Student Samples
CSE Student
Outcomes
1
11
3
9
Instruments of
Direct
Assessment
Midterm
(6)
Avg
Midterm
(3)
Final
(4)
Avg
Final
(8)
Avg
Midterm
(9)
Final
(11)
Avg
Student
Samples
(5=excellent to
1=poor)
5
2
1
4
4
5
3
5
5
5
5.0
2.0
1.0
4.0
4.0
5.0
3.0
5.0
5.0
5.0
5
4
1
5
3
2
4
2
3
5
1
5
1
5
5
2
5
5
5
5
3.0
4.5
1.0
5.0
4.0
2.0
4.5
3.5
4.0
5.0
2
1
5
4
5
5
5
3
5
5
2.0
1.0
5.0
4.0
5.0
5.0
5.0
3.0
5.0
5.0
4
4
2
5
2
3
5
1
1
5
5
3
5
4
5
5
2
1
5
5
4.5
3.5
3.5
4.5
3.5
4.0
3.5
1.0
3.0
5.0
Outcome
Average
3.9
3.7
4.0
Distribution of Scoring (text)
CSE Student
Outcomes
1
11
Poor
[1.0-1.5)
1
1
3
9
1
1
Distribution of Scoring
Very
Fair
Good
good
[1.5-2.5) [2.5-3.5) [3.5-4.5)
1
1
2
1
1
3
1
0
Distribution of Scoring (graphic)
1
1
1
5
Excellent
[4.5-5.0]
5
4
6
3
3.6
Midterm:
6. [9 points] Write a context-free grammar that describes simple function headers in C syntax. Assume
that the return type and the type of formal parameters are either int or float. The following are examples of
legal strings according to this grammar:
int f ();
float g (int x);
int h (float a, int b, float c);
You do not need to describe the identifiers for function names and parameter names, consider them
given by the scanner as ID.
3. [8 points] Assume two versions of the same program – one using macros, and the other using
functions. In general, which one will run faster? Which one will produce a larger compiler-generated
code? Why?
9. [10 points] Write a recursive function (tally V L), which counts and returns the number of occurrences
of the element V in the list L. The following example illustrates the use of this function:
> (tally 'a '(b a 7 c a a 3 a))
4
Final:
11. [10 points] Write the rules for a Prolog predicate add_last(X,L,L1) that succeeds if L1 is the list that
results by adding the element X at the end of list L. The following example illustrates the use of this
predicate:
?- add_last(7,[1,5,3],L1).
L1 = [1,5,3,7]
4. [9 points] In most languages, local variables are allocated dynamically on the stack, thus introducing a
run-time overhead caused by stack maintenance operations. Why not just reserve a memory region for
each subroutine’s local variables, and allocate them statically there?
8. [10 points] Consider the following Scheme function f:
(define (f L1 L2)
(cond
((null? L1) L2)
((null? L2)
(else
L1)
(if (< (car L1) (car L2))
(cons (car L1) (f (cdr L1) L2))
(cons (car L2) (f L1 (cdr L2)))))))
Indicate the value returned by the following calls:
(f '(1 5 8) '())

(f '(1 5 8 9) '(2 7))

(f '(3 5 6) '(1 5 7 8))

Is function f tail-recursive? Justify your answer.