You are helping create an exam for the course Machine Learning for Computer Systems. Students may run this same prompt to generate practice exams; the instructor runs it to draft the real one.

Parameters (ask if not given)

1. Exam type: midterm, final, or combined (single exam for a short term).
2. Term agenda file: docs/agenda/<term>.md (e.g. docs/agenda/2026-summer.md). The agenda index is docs/agenda.md.
3. Meeting range to cover (e.g. Meetings 1–8 for a midterm, 1–12 for a combined exam). If the term has a page under docs/terms/, read it: it lists lectures that were skipped or merged and are therefore out of scope.
4. Length: pages (default 4 for a midterm, 6 for a final or combined exam) and total points (default 50; combined exam 75). Design for ~30–40 minutes of work per 50 points.
5. Output directory. Instructor: /Users/feamster/Dropbox/Tmp/exams/ml-systems/<type>/<YYYY>/ (cloud-backed, outside the public repo — never commit exam files before the exam is given). Students: any directory of your own; nothing here is secret.
6. Past exams to imitate: 2–3 most recent under docs/midterm/<YYYY>/ and docs/final/<YYYY>/ (each has questions.tex, instructions.tex, exam.tex, feamster.sty, and usually a Makefile). For a combined exam, read one midterm and one final.

Task

Create an exam that:

1. Covers the material in the chosen meeting range of the agenda, in proportion to time spent, and nothing outside it.
2. Fits on exactly the requested number of single-sided pages and totals exactly the requested points.
3. Mixes multiple choice (“select all that apply”, 3–4 pts), yes/no with explanation (3–4 pts; ask “Why or why not?”), and short answer (2–5 pts, generous answer boxes).
4. Includes at least one question about each assignment and several about the hands-on activities (what the code did, why, what the result showed).
5. Uses specific examples from class: the agenda records the analogies and discussions the instructor used (e.g. husky/wolf spurious correlation, the acknowledgment-packet problem, Netflix segment download rate, the “always says no” 99.9%-accurate classifier, ephemeral routes for spam). Where the agenda says “this would be a good exam question,” it is.
6. Tests understanding, not memorization, and is not tricky.
7. Ends with a 3-point feedback section (interest, difficulty, one like, one suggestion).

Steps

1. Read the agenda file for the meeting range and the term page (if any).
2. Read the past exams to learn the LaTeX conventions and the point/format mix.
3. List the key concepts per meeting; drop anything the term page marks as skipped.
4. Write questions.tex (with solutions), instructions.tex, exam.tex, a Makefile, and a README.md; copy feamster.sty from the most recent past exam.
5. Build both exam.pdf and exam-solution.pdf; verify page count, point total, and layout; iterate until they match.

LaTeX conventions (from feamster.sty)

• \prob{N} … \eprob wraps a question worth N points. Do not use \prob{} for the acknowledgment box in instructions.tex — it would add a phantom point. Use:

  {\bf 1.} Write your full name in the box to acknowledge the instructions.
  
  \shortanswerbox{3.25}{Nick Feamster}
  

  The first real question is then numbered 2.

• Multiple choice: \correctanswercircle{} for correct options, \answercircle{} otherwise. Keep option text short enough for the two-column layout.
• Yes/no: \framebox{\yesnoyes} or \framebox{\yesnono} (no braces around Yes/No).
• Short answer: \answerbox{height-in-inches}{solution text}; 1.0–3.0 in depending on expected length; solution text must be a single paragraph and must not contain &. Put a blank line before \answerbox. Very short answers: \shortanswerbox{width}{text}.
• Sections: \section*{Name} followed by \vspace*{-0.1in} to save space.
• instructions.tex must carry the permitted-materials statement verbatim: “This exam is closed-book and closed-notes except for {\bf one 8.5\,$\times$\,11-inch sheet of paper with handwritten notes (both sides permitted)}. No electronic devices, additional pages, or other materials are permitted.”
• exam.tex uses \usepackage[]{feamster}; the Makefile produces the solution version by sed-inserting the solution option (make exam, make solution, make all, make clean).

Validation

make all
pdfinfo exam.pdf | grep Pages          # must equal the requested page count
grep -o '\\prob{[0-9]*}' questions.tex | tr -dc '0-9\n' | awk '{s+=$1} END {print s}'   # must equal the point total

Open the PDF: no overlapping text, answer boxes start on a new line, multiple-choice options don’t spill across columns. Too long: remove page breaks between sections, shrink boxes, merge questions. Too short: enlarge boxes.

Instructor-only

• Exam files stay in Dropbox until the exam has been given; commit them to docs/<type>/<YYYY>/ afterwards, with solutions, as practice material for the next offering.