Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Spring Semester, 2008
6.01: Introduction to EECS I

Comments on exploration 2

We apologize for returning exploration 2 so late. You'll see a score on your paper, but there are almost no comments. The scoring is as follows: Each part was worth a maximum of 2 points, to make points maximum possible for this exploration.

Most people who tried parts A and B got results. To get 2 points, you needed to show test cases; otherwise the answer got 1 point, even if it was correct.

The most common error on the primes problem was programs that simply tested numbers n for divisibility by all numbers between 1 and n-1. That gives the primes, but it's not the sieving method: you need to remove composite numbers from the set of test divisors as you go along.

For integration, many people write the programs, but didn't include any discussion of the error. In particular, the Simpson's Rule results can be confusing, because the error in the numerical approximation algorithm can be masked by the error in Python's arithmetic and printing for small dx.

Answers to the behavior priority questions were mixed -- many people did extraordinarily good jobs here. The main reasons for losing points were failing describe how that program behaved (part E: exploration 7).