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Exam and Revision Information

Rosemary J. Harris

School of Mathematical SciencesQueen Mary University of London

(Introduction to Probability, 2021/22)

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January is coming soon

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R. J. Harris

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Important details

Your final mark for this module is based on the five courseworks (eachcounting 4%) and the exam (counting 80%).

The exam is on Monday January 10th 2022, starting at 10am (GMT).[If it doesn’t appear in your timetable, please contact exams@qmul.ac.uk.]

This year it is an “open book” online exam, via QMplus.

There will be access for 24 hours. However, you will only have a maximum of3 hours1 to complete the exam from whenever you start.

If you start after 7am on January 11th, you will get less than 3 hours.The exam itself should take 2 hours (as in pre-covid times), the extra hour is toallow for upload and submission.

1Longer if you have special examination access arrangements agreed with DDS.

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Instructions I

This quiz assessment is available for a period of 24 hours. Upon accessing theassessment, you will have 3 hours in which to complete and submit it. You may logout and in again during that time, but the countdown timer will not stop. If yourattempt is still in progress at the end of your 3 hours (or at the 24-hour deadline ifearlier), any answers you have filled will be automatically submitted.

This means:

You should allow plenty of time to convert your work to PDF and upload.

If you have technical problems, you must email maths@qmul.ac.uk before orimmediately after your three-hour deadline, attaching your PDF file.

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Instructions II

In completing this assessment:

You may use books and notes.You may use calculators and computers, but you must show your working for anycalculations you do.You may use the Internet as a resource, but not to ask for the solution to anexam question or to copy any solution you find.You must not seek or obtain help from anyone else.

This means:

You can consult websites or notes/books in any form (digital or printed).

You must not communicate with anyone else (about the exam) during thewhole 24-hour period. [Do not use social media, internet forums etc.!]

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Marks/Results

The exam mark is out of 100 (before combining with the courseworks).

Provisional results should be available around the middle of next term.

You need (overall) 40% to pass.[If you fail, you will have a second attempt in late summer, capped to 40%.]

The overall percentage mark will correspond to a grade on your transcript:A: 70.0–100.0;B: 60.0–69.9;C: 50.0–59.9;D: 45.0–49.9;E: 40.0–44.9;F: 0.0–39.9.

For a BSc, the weightings in the final “classification mark” are 1:3:6.[For an MSci, they are 1:3:6:6.]

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Cheating is wrong – don’t do it!

1. You may get caught!

If you can use the internet, so can we...

2. It’s not worth it!

The answers you get from elsewhere may not even be right.Possible penalties if you’re caught include zero in this module or even worse.Academic misconduct is not a good thing to have on your record,It will harm your future marks if you don’t understand this year’s material.

3. You owe it to your own (future) self to be honest!

Think how you’ll feel at graduation.

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Quiz questions

There will be 12 quiz questions on the exam worth a total of 80 marks.[Some questions will be worth 6 marks, some worth 8 marks.]

The questions will be similar in style/format/difficulty to those on the weeklyquizzes and fortnightly courseworks.

They will include matching, multiple-choice, and numerical questions.

You should aim to spend about 1.5 hours on this part of the exam.[Don’t forget to check your answers carefully.]

The best practice is to be (re)doing the quizzes/courseworks, looking atcalculation questions on past exams, and thinking about alternatives.

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Written question

There will be one written question on the exam worth a total of 20 marks.[You will be able to see how many marks are available for each part.]

The question will be similar in style/format/difficulty to the questions onpre-covid exam papers (especially 2020).

There will be slightly less emphasis this year on bookwork (e.g., statingdefinitions) and slightly more on understanding/explanation.

You should aim to spend about 0.5 hours on this part of the exam.

Your work must be handwritten (with either a physical or digital pen) anduploaded as a single PDF file.

The best practice is to be looking at past exam papers, lectureexamples/exercises, and feedback on your written coursework questions.

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What do you need to know?

The exam is based on the syllabus as demonstrated by the content of thelecture notes (excluding Exercises marked ** and anything explicitly marked asnon-examinable).

Concentrate on understanding this material rather than memorising it...

You can get an idea of the most important topics by looking at the learningobjectives and past papers.

You can expect a small amount of “unseen” content in the exam. This couldinclude, for instance, a straightforward calculation in an unfamiliar setting,something requiring you to put different bits of the course together, or a(simple) proof we haven’t covered in class.

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Good revision

Start by working through your lecture notes (and rewatching the recordings),making sure that there are no gaps and that you “get” the concepts.

You want to develop a good intuitive understanding for what probability wordsmean but also be able to define them precisely mathematically.

Try to understand how concepts relate to one another (e.g., “pairwisedisjoint” and “mutually exclusive” mean the same thing, but “independent”means something totally different).

As you go through the notes, summarize the main ideas and make sure youcan find key results/formulae quickly.

After each chapter/week of notes try to (re)do the relevant quiz questions.

Don’t just look at past papers – that’s like trying to learn to drive byrepeatedly taking your driving test!

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Practice

Exam papers (and some solutions) are in the “EXAM PREPARATION”Section of the QMplus page.

This year’s exam is identical in format to last year’s (but differentquestions!)...

On 14th/16th December we will spend the second lecture hour goingthrough (some of) the 2021 exam paper.

It will help if you can look at this beforehand.There will probably be an opportunity to vote for the most “popular” questions.Solutions will be made available afterwards.

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Further support

There will be (optional) drop-in revision sessions in the online course roomat the following times:

Monday 20th December, 2–3pm;Wednesday 5th January, 2–3pm;Friday 7th January, 2–3pm.

You can use the student forum at any time (and feel free to answer eachother’s questions there too).

For anything more specific to your situation, please send an email but notethat you’ll get an auto-reply during the QMUL closure period (22nd Decemberto 3rd January, inclusive).

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It will be over on 11th January!