Regarding the final exam

The final exam is on Thursday, May 16th between 2:15 and 4:15 pm at 1505 Seaman Center (Engineering Building). The exam is worth 300 points (30% of your grade) and contains 5 problems, each worth 60 points.

Here is some information on each problem that might help you study better for the exam.

  1. On the greedy method. The problem consists of two parts. The first part involves constructing a small example on which the greedy algorithm does not work. The second part involves showing, for a certain greedy algorithm, that the greedy choice is the "correct shoice".
  2. On dynamic programming. You are given a recurrence relation and asked to devise a dynamic programming algorithm that implements the recurrence.
  3. On BFS and DFS. You are asked to devise an algorithm to perform some computation on a graph. The algorithm is easily devised if you use BFS or DFS as a starting point.
  4. On Minimum Spanning trees. You are asked to devise an algorithm to perform some computation on minimum spanning trees. The algorithm is easily devised if you understand the structure of minimum spanning trees.
  5. On Shortest Path algorithms. Answering this problem requires an understanding of how shortest path algorithms can deal with negative cycles in graphs.