Final exam - 2012

Class date(s):

17 December 2012

The final exam is scheduled for 17 December 2012 at 12:30, however, please confirm the date and time.

The exam will be comprehensive. It will cover all topics in the course, with emphasis on the topics covered most intensively during the course, economics, safety, operability and troubleshooting. It will also cover material from the SDL presentations and any enrichment topics presented in class.

Answering questions in the final exam

• You may bring in any printed materials to the exam; any textbooks, any papers, etc.
• You may use any calculator during the exam.
• You may answer the questions in any order in the answer booklet.
• Time saving tip: please use bullet points to answer, where appropriate, and never repeat the question back in your answer.
• If anything seems unclear, or information appears to be incomplete, please make a reasonable assumption and continue with the question.

How to prepare for the exam

• Understand the concepts being learned. My courses are not about applying the correct equation and solving.
• Check that your answers are reasonable and comment on whether they are, and especially if they seem unreasonable. This demonstrates that even though you have a calculation error, you have used your engineering judgement to identify that.
• Read the questions carefully: they are usually worded precisely. The biggest point where students loose marks is to answer only part of the question.
• Questions that you did on computer in the assignments: make sure you can repeat them by hand. Obviously not where you have to draw an entire economic analysis, but make sure the calculations can be done for one or two periods.
• Review and repeat all assignment questions that you do not understand. Do not rely on the assignment solutions: none of the final exam questions are going to be from the assignments (even with different values).
• I cannot emphasize this strongly enough, even though experience has shown me that most of you will disregard this advice: treat the exam as a closed-book test: have a formula sheet for the equations, and understand all the concepts without referring to a textbook. Textbooks and other papers should be used to refer to as a backup only.