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. The nine-week offering has a midterm and a final; the three-week offering has one combined exam (see generate-combined.md). The nine-week offering has typically run in Autumn and the three-week one in September, but either may move to another part of the year; go by the offering’s length, not the season.
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 (read each one’s rubric.yaml, grading-notes.md, and analysis.md first where present; skip questions they mark ambiguous): 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. Imitate exams of the same kind: nine-week midterms and finals are consistent with each other; the three-week combined exam differs in length and layout.

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. The agenda is the authority on scope, not the topic lists in these prompts or the past exams.
2. Avoids everything the agenda rules out. Anything the agenda marks “will not be asked”, “not exam material”, “not covered”, or skipped, and anything a later meeting says will not be on this exam, is out of scope even if a past exam asked about it.
3. Fits on exactly the requested number of pages (printed double-sided and stapled) and totals exactly the requested points. No question may split across a page and no section heading may be orphaned: wrap every \prob … \eprob in \par\noindent\begin{minipage}{\linewidth} … \end{minipage}\par, and put each section heading inside the minipage of its first question. A minipage cannot break, so no \Needspace guessing is needed. Then grow the boxes until every page is full: render at 72 dpi, measure the free space above the footer on each page, and add it to that page’s boxes. Students never complain that a box is too big; the Autumn 2026 midterm survey asked for boxes about twice as large and a longer exam.
4. Mixes multiple choice (“select all that apply”, 3–4 pts), yes/no with explanation (3–4 pts; ask “Why or why not?” in the same numbered question, with the box directly under the yes/no; never a separate “Explain” item; state the claim positively, no double negatives), and short answer (2–5 pts, generous answer boxes). A question that asks for two or more distinct things gets (a), (b) labels with each part’s instruction written next to its own box, not folded into the stem. A question asking for N named items (the four parts of a threat model; subject, verb, object; three metrics) gets a grid of small labeled boxes, one per item. “Identify which is which” questions are matching: name the categories in the stem, letter the items in the figure or list, and give a small box per category for the letter.
5. Includes at least one question about each assignment due in the range and several about the hands-on activities the agenda records for the range (what the code did, why, what the result showed). Hands-ons vary by term; use the agenda, not a fixed list.
6. 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” or carries a Midterm flag / Final flag, it is: cover every such flag in the range.
7. Tests understanding, not memorization, and is not tricky.
8. Ends with a 3-point section headed Course Feedback (interest, difficulty, one like, one suggestion), so students know it is about the course, not the exam. Give the free-text box whatever space is left on the last page.

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 and exam flags per meeting; drop anything the term page marks as skipped and anything the agenda says will not be asked.
4. Write questions.tex (with solutions), instructions.tex, exam.tex, a Makefile, and a README.md; copy feamster.sty and the Makefile from the most recent past exam of the same kind (e.g. the last nine-week offering’s midterm).
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:

  \noindent Write your full name here to acknowledge these instructions: \shortanswerbox{3.25}{Nick Feamster}
  

  The name box is not a numbered question; the first \prob is question 1. Keep the front matter to one short paragraph (points, bubbles, permitted materials) plus that name line; a multi-paragraph preamble costs a third of a page.

• Labeled small boxes (grids, sub-parts, matching letters) use this macro, defined at the top of questions.tex:

  \newcommand{\gridbox}[3]{%
    \ifthenelse{\equal{\version}{solution}}{%
      \tikz[baseline=(x.base)]\draw (0,0) rectangle node (x) [text width=\dimexpr#1-6pt\relax, align=left] {\scriptsize #3} (#1, #2);%
    }{%
      \tikz[baseline=(x.base)]\draw (0,0) rectangle node (x) {\vphantom{Aq}} (#1, #2);%
    }}
  % \gridbox{width}{height}{solution}, e.g. \gridbox{6cm}{1.4cm}{integrity}, inside a tabular with the labels
  

• Multiple choice: \correctanswercircle{} for correct options, \answercircle{} otherwise. Keep option text short enough for the two-column layout.
• Randomize where the correct answers sit. The key must not be readable from the layout. In every multiple-choice question put the correct options at random positions: in a two-column grid spread them across both columns and different rows, never all in the left column or the top rows; in a single-column list, not always first. Across the exam, correct options should land about evenly in every position and column, consecutive single-answer questions should not share the key’s position, and select-all questions should vary in how many options are correct. Balance yes/no keys too: use both \yesnoyes and \yesnono, in no fixed pattern. Before finishing, write out the whole key (for example “Q1: B, C, F; Q5: no; Q9: D”) and fix any pattern you can see in it.

• Show the answer key as a table before the exam is final, for the instructor to look over, one row per question with an answer to check:

  Question	Type	Correct answer(s)
  Q3	single answer	2 of 5
  Q5	select all	1, 2, 4 of 5
  Q8	yes/no	no

  Give positions as they appear on the page (count across the row, then down, in a two-column grid). Note under the table any pattern still visible, such as two single-answer keys in the same position, so the instructor can decide.

• 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}.

• The solution box grows to fit its answer. In feamster.sty, the solution branch of \answerbox must draw a node that stretches to its text, never shorter than the student’s box, so a long model answer (or one amended after grading) can’t spill over the next question. The student version keeps the fixed-height rectangle. If the copied feamster.sty still has the fixed-height solution branch, replace that one line with:

  % the box grows to fit a long solution (never shorter than the exam's box)
  \tikz\node[draw, align=left, inner xsep=.025\textwidth, text width=.95\textwidth, minimum height=#1 * 1.5cm] (sol) {\textbf{Solution:} #2} node[anchor=south east] at (sol.north east) {(Answer inside the box)};%
  

• Sections: \section*{Name} inside the first question’s minipage (above), with \vspace{1.2ex} before the minipage; \titlespacing*{\section}{0pt}{1.2ex}{1.0ex} in exam.tex so the heading is not jammed against the question.
• Figures: a write-in box inside a figure is at least two handwriting lines tall and as wide as the figure allows (extend the canvas rather than shrink the box); ask for the shortest mark in it (a letter, a number, a circled element), not a sentence; labels print at 8 pt or more on a black-and-white copier; the student figure must not show what the question pretends is hidden.
• 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).

Pre-copy review (required before the copier)

Run two independent reviews of the built PDFs, one on the answer key and one reading the exam as a student would, and fold both into the source before printing. Each reviewer checks every item for:

• Key: is the keyed answer uniquely right? Could a prepared student defend another option? Widen the key (accept X) rather than argue later.
• Wording: two readings; a term never used in class; “the two reasons” when other pairs are also right (say “two”); “by default” claims that depend on the tool or version; a stem that reveals what the question pretends is hidden; a question about an assignment or hands-on that does not match what it actually did; a yes/no that is a double negative.
• Select-all: every option answers the stem’s question, not a nearby one; nothing the agenda promised “will not be asked”.
• Form of answer: does the stem say what to write (a letter, a word, a number, three items)? Is the box big enough for it?
• Assignment coverage: at least one question only a student who did the assignment can answer.
• Layout on paper: nothing straddles a page, no heading orphaned, figures legible on a copier, every box reachable with a pen.

Record what the review changed in the exam’s README.md. The Autumn 2026 midterm’s in-class debrief also asked for randomized option positions (already required above) and noted that one rubric item expected an alternative the question had not asked for: the key must only reward what the stem asks.

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 page by page: no question split across a page, no orphaned heading, no overlapping text, answer boxes start on a new line, multiple-choice options don’t spill across columns. Open exam-solution.pdf too and look at where the filled bubbles and circled yes/no answers fall: no column, row or position should stand out. 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.