CSCI 265 Software Engineering Midterm and Final exam
Midterm
There will be one midterm, worth 20% of the final grade.
The midterm is written (paper/pencil), closed notes and closed book, no electronics permitted,
and conducted in the regular lecture time on Monday October 26. Students will be permitted
one double-sided 8.5"x11" 'cheat sheet'. (The cheat sheet does not
have to be handwritten.)
The midterm is intended to take roughly 80 minutes to complete, and will cover
all the course, lab, and project material up to and including Friday October 23rd.
A review session will be held the Wednesday prior to the midterm, with topics and
practice material posted on this page.
Updated topics list:
Essentially everything up to and including the demos on Friday Oct 23rd: all
the lecture topics prior to AI on the lecture resources page.
- general ideas on the challenges faced in designing and implementing larger, more complex
systems in a team environment
- software development life cycles: waterfall, spiral, agile, scrum, and hybrids of these
(pros and cons of each, particularly when given specific scenarios for context)
- roles and responsibilities in development teams
- version control in general, at both the individual and team levels
- git in particular: understand the functionality of the commands, don't worry about
memorizing precise syntax (unlike some past midterms/quizzes)
- requirements and specifications: gathering and writing effective requirements for target
audiences, use of appropriate writing techniques and structures, use of appropriate
supporting diagrams, images, etc, writing of non-functional requirements
- human computer interaction, accessibility, and internationalization/localization
Exam format/question styles:
The exam will consist of four equally-weighted questions. I would recommend
allocating roughly 15 minutes for each question on a first pass, then spend the final
20 minutes or so on whichever questions are not yet complete.
- 5 parts, each asking for 1-2 sentences on some aspect of version control in git
- 2 parts, each asking for a short paragraph of discussion on some of our most recent topics: non-functional requirements, standards, HCI, localization, internationalization
- One longer discussion question on SDLCs and roles/responsibilities
- One longer question on requirement writing and diagramming techniques (DFD, ERD,
context diagrams, state diagrams, sequence diagrams) in the context of a
specific system description
The 2026 practice midterm and sample solutions (coming shortly)
Here are examples of some past final/midterm/quiz questions that would be
relevant for this year's midterm (since we changed the order of topics this year).
Final exam replacing midterm: the student's midterm mark can be replaced
by their final exam mark if their final exam mark is higher.
Individual work: as with all work in this course, midterms and finals must
be strictly individual efforts. The student is not permitted to seek or accept
assistance from other individuals or sources (including AI-supported tools)
in completing any portion of an exam.
Similarly, students are not permitted to provide assistance to other students
in completing any portion of an exam. Note that VIU policies consider
both parties to be committing academic misconduct in such situations,
and both parties may incur the resuling penalties.
Final exam
The final exam will be worth 40% of your total grade and will be held as an
in person written exam in the gym during the formal VIU exam period (date, time,
and location TBA).
The exam will be closed notes, closed book, no electronics permitted, but you are permitted
one 8.5" by 11" 'cheat sheet' of notes. This can be of your own design, no restrictions on the
content. (It does not have to be handwritten.)
The format will be ten questions, all equal weight, with a heavy emphasis on
discussion and justify-your-answer styles of question.
A review session will be held in the final lecture prior to the final exam, and the material covered
will consist of course all material up to and including the review session,
including all lectures, quizzes, project components, etc.
While the exam can draw on any area of the course, some of the key focus areas
for this year's exam will be software development life cycles, requirements/specifications
and design,
version control, code reviews and inspections, testing and automation,
and the use of AI in software development.
You will be expected to be able to plan/discuss the use of git for version control,
but detailed knowledge of specific command syntax is not expected.
(Essentially know which commands are used for which purposes, and the circumstances
under which they are/are not appropriate.)
Similarly, you will be expected to be able to plan/discuss the use of bash
for automation, but detailed knowledge of specific bash syntax is not expected.
(Essentially you should be able to work at a pseudo-code level of bash.)
Unlike some past exams, there will be no focus on makefiles, C++, or bash scripting in this year's final.
OLD EXAMS
Note that the material covered and order of topics varies from year to year
(perl in particular was covered extensively in earlier years), so don't be alarmed
if some of the questions cover material we haven't touched on.
Below are some older 265 final exams.
2014,
2015,
2016,
2017,
2018,
2019 ,
2023,
2024,
2025