The examination for FAI consists of two parts, which are scheduled on the same morning or afternoon.
The examination starts with an OPEN BOOK, WRITTEN, EXERCISE examination. This means that for this part of the examination you are allowed to use any study material, books, copies of slides, notes on exercises that you think might be useful to you. The examination is written: you write down your solutions to the questions clearly readable in the format (if any) specified in the questions. There will be 2 exercises that you need to solve. Typically, these exercises will be somewhat similar to examples that we studied in the course and/or to exercises that you worked out in the exercise sessions.
The time available for solving the exercises is limited to 2 hours. After 2 hours, all students are asked to hand in their solutions to the questions. If you do not need the full 2 hours to complete your answers to the questions, then you are allowed to hand in your solutions earlier. In this case you are allowed to start earlier on the second part of the examination.
After you have turned in your solutions to the first part of the examination, you are asked to place ALL your books, paper, notes, etc. in the back of the room. You are only allowed to keep pens or other tools for writing (NO paper - not even blanc paper). You will be given the questions for the second part of the examination together with blanc paper for your answers as soon as you have placed all your material in the back of the room.
The second part of the examination is CLOSED BOOK, ORAL WITH WRITTEN PREPARATION and THEORY. Just as an example of the style of the questions:
Standard backtracking as a technique for solving constraint problems causes problems due to "trashing" and due to other "redundant checking of constraints".
Explain these two problems.
How do backjumping and backmarking solve these problems? Briefly explain how these techniques work 'conceptually'. What extra information do these techniques require to solve the problems? What are the properties of this extra information that backmarking uses to solve the problem?
What is the "first-fail principle"? Why is it useful? What is "dynamic search rearrangement"?
As the above example shows: the questions are usually written in a style that makes it unnecessary to memorize exactly which things were studied concerning a specific topic. The question itself tells you which things were important, but asks to explain specific points about these items that show whether you understood the problems and their solutions.
After you have prepared your answers on paper, you fill in your name on the blackboard to indicate that your are ready to discuss your answers. The oral examination is on the theory examination only. There is no hard time limit on how long you may prepare for the oral examination, but of course, for practical reasons, this should not exceed 2 hours (there are 2 questions).
If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to ask me.