An Analysis of Algorithm's exam.

There has been pin drop silence in Analysis of Algorithms(AoA) community after first exam ended yesterday. No one dares to ask the next person as to how the exam went, lest he or she has to reveal how bad they did. Barring exceptions(which is important to recognize because they are the ones who are leading the pack and where we all aspire to be), it seems boats of majority got sunk by AoA tide. Unfortunately, my small boat also met a similar fate.

While I read and understood book & lectures, and made a 3-page summary notes for last day revision, the diagnosis of the preparation-cum-exam reveals several shortcomings. Without giving a detailed account for each, the lacuna lies here :

• Absolutely zero problem solving and practice : It's very easy to sit and consume information, without challenging oneself with application of learnt knowledge.

• Course management and scheduling : One-time sequential studying of subjects, instead of managing them parallelly bit-by-bit, is taking toll on learning and exams.

• Time management : Sins of first fortnight are catching up now. Every wasteful act casts a long, dark shadow onto one's future. Quality of seeds determine strength of a tree.

Ideally, I shouldn't get into the toughness of the exam. But if asked, I would actually say that one should have been able to score above average easily. Three out of six questions were easy (even for someone like me) - not that I did them fully right. Actually, my preparation was so bad that it took me 25-30 minutes to just make that Decision Tree. This should ideally take 15 minutes at max if practiced beforehand(which should have been done because Prof Ungor mentioned explicitly that he likes to ask such questions). The point I am making is that it wasn't the paper that was tough. It's my own preparation that have let me down(and also behind).

Anyway, there is no need(and time) to beat one's chest now. There is another exam coming up next week for Advanced Data Structures(ADS). The situation is same again as it was one week before AoA exam. Only solace is that ADS exam is said to be easily handled. But again, it will be complete foolishness if I decide to study only ADS now and then end up with disaster in Distributed Operating System(DOS)'s project due 1st October. Therefore, I must get other stuff done alongside as well.

As far as this first setback of AoA is concerned, there is still hope. There are 3 more exams to come with opportunity to make a comeback - along with any bonuses that we can capture. No doubt it is challenging subject, but I also found it most important & interesting of all three subjects I have for the first semester. Hopefully, by next month, things will become better and, then, I will not have to tell my parents about the below average performance when they ask again : How was your exam ?