Placement Exams
Placement exams are a key component of the MPCS onboarding process, designed to ensure students are matched with coursework that aligns with their existing knowledge and skills. All incoming students to the MS in Computer Science should plan to take placement exams before beginning their studies.
If you are a new student without any programming and/or Discrete Math background, you can opt to begin in the Immersion Courses without taking exams. Please make sure you understand that these immersion classes are prerequisite classes and will be taken in addition to your courses required for graduation. In some cases, this will extend your time in the program and could limit the core courses you can take in your first quarter in the program.
Autumn 2025 MPCS Placement Exams:
MPCS Programming Exam I: 06/03/25 – 06/04/25 (ONLINE) | Registration Opens May 5, 2025
All new MPCS students should plan to take MPCS Programming Placement Exam I at this time. The MPCS Programming Placement Exam I must be completed within a 2 hour time frame between Tuesday, June 3rd at 8AM CST and Wednesday, June 4th at 8PM CST. Results will be communicated by June 13th. Registration for MPCS 50101 for Summer 2025 will be available after Exam I results are received. Summer quarter begins on June 16th.
MPCS Programming Exam II: 07/29/25 – 07/30/25 (ONLINE)
New MPCS students that receive a pass on Programming Exam I will be invited to take Programming Exam II. Exam II will allow for placement into more advanced programming classes.
MPCS Discrete Math Exam: 06/02/25 (IN-PERSON) & 09/15/25 – 09/16/25 (IN-PERSON) | Registration Opens May 5, 2025
The Discrete Math exam is offered in-person only. We will have an offering in June in Chicago ahead of the Summer 2025 quarter. New MPCS students only need to take the exam at this time if they are already in Chicago. All new Autumn 2025 students will have the opportunity to take the Discrete Math Exam in September during MPCS Orientation week.
MPCS Data Analysis Exam: 09/22/25 (IN-PERSON)
The Data Analysis exam is offered in-person only. This is an optional exam for those who would like the opportunity to waive MPCS 53110 Foundations of Computational Data Analysis. All students interested in the exam must take it on September 22, 2025. If you do not take the exam on this date, you are expected to enroll in MPCS 53110 Foundations of Computational Data.
- Non-MPCS students approved to take MPCS courses must also pass the relevant placement exams. The required exams will be noted in your approval email from the MPCS Course Request Form.
- Students requiring exam accommodations must register with the Student Disability Services (SDS) office.
Placement Exam Overviews
Programming Placement Exam Overview
The MPCS offers a sequence of placement exams to assist with correct course placement for new MPCS students. An overview of the exams can be found below. Non-MPCS students interested in taking MPCS classes may be required to take one or both of these exams to be eligible to take a class.
Additional details on the exams and practice problems are found in separate Canvas sites. New MPCS students and those approved to take MPCS classes will be added to the required Canvas site once it is available.
Important notes on exams:
- New MPCS students will be required to take this exam before beginning the program. Non-MPCS students will be eligible to take the exam if approved for a MPCS class.
- Students are allowed to take the exam once. i.e., if you do not pass the exam at the main sitting, you are not allowed to retake the exam at subsequent sittings.
- Students without any background in programming can opt out of the exam and instead take MPCS 50101 Concepts of Programming as their first course in the program. Taking MPCS 50101 Concepts of Programming will extend the time to graduation for most MPCS students.
- For new MPCS students, passing the MPCS Programming Exam I will allow for course placement into MPCS 51042 Python Programming or MPCS 50136 Java Programming. For advanced course placement, the second programming exam is required.
An overview of topics and format are found below:
The MPCS Programming Exam I (“MPCS Exam 1”) will test the material that students must know before taking a Core Programming class in the MPCS. This exam will cover the following topics:
- Programming Basics (e.g., values, types, expressions, and control flow)
- Functions and Recursive Functions
- Object Oriented Programming (defining classes, methods, etc.)
- Data Structures (e.g., lists, sets, dictionaries) and Simple Recursive Data Structures (i.e. trees)
Exam Format
This exam will be offered online, and may be taken in C++, Java, or Python. It is intended to evaluate students’ grasp of concepts, not their fluency with any specific programming language.
Once a student starts the exam, they will have 120 minutes to write programs that solve four programming problems of varying difficulty. Students will be expected to make progress on all four problems to pass the exam.
You will submit your solutions through the Gradescope platform, which will run your code, including testing your code with a variety of inputs. We provide detailed instructions on how to use this platform in the Canvas site. We also provide several practice problems, and a practice exam, to help you familiarize yourself with the exam platform.
The exam will be open-book and open-Internet with some limitations. While students will be allowed to consult any online documentation, they must cite any resources used by including the relevant information in a comment in their code. Students are also expected to solve the problems themselves. A student who gets help from a friend or family member or who uses a tool, such as ChatGPT, violates the exam’s academic honesty policy.
New MPCS students who pass MPCS Exam I will have the option to take MPCS Exam II. This second exam, offered at a later date, will allow for advanced course placement.
MPCS Programming Exam II covers the following topics:
- Programming Basics (e.g., values, types, expressions, and control flow)
- Functions and Recursive Functions
- Object Oriented Programming (classes, inheritance, etc.)
- Data Structures (e.g., lists, sets, dictionaries) and Recursive Data Structures (e.g., trees, graphs)
- Software Development (e.g., design, testing)
Discrete Math Placement Exam Overview
- PLACEMENT EXAM CAN BE TAKEN ONLY ONCE.
- Students who have previously taken MPCS 50103 are not eligible to take the math placement exam. If you have registered for MPCS 50103 Discrete Math attended more than three class sessoions, withdrew or did not pass the class, you are not eligible to take the exam.
- All new MPCS students MUST take the placement exam OR enroll in MPCS 50103 Mathematics for Computer Science: Discrete Math
- Non-MPCS students will need to pass the Discrete Math placement exam for approval to register for MPCS 55001 Algorithms. Students who have taken CMSC 27100 may be given a waiver for the exam. Course request approvals will include information about required exams.
Data Analysis Placement Exam Overview
- PLACEMENT EXAM CAN BE TAKEN ONLY ONCE.
Statistics
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Sample spaces, probability measure, independence
Discrete and continuous random variables
Common distributions: Bernoulli, binomial, geometric, Poisson, uniform, exponential, (multivariate) normal.
Joint/conditional distributions, functions of jointly distributed random variables
Expectation, variance, covariance, correlation, conditional expectation
Moment generating functions
Law of large numbers, central limit theorem.
Distributions of sample mean and sample variance
Parameter estimation based on moments, maximum likelihood, and the Bayesian approach.
Confidence intervals, hypotheses testing, Neyman-Pearson paradigm.
Linear algebra
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Systems of linear equations, Gaussian/Gauss-Jordan elimination, (reduced) row echelon form, solutions to homogeneous/nonhomogeneous systems.
Matrix opertations, inverse, rank.
Vector spaces, four fundamental subspaces, linear independence, basis, dimension.
Determinants and their properties.
Eigenvalues, Eigenvectors, diagonalization
Inner product, orthogonality
Symmetric matrices, quadratic forms, singular value decomposition.
Suggested textbooks
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