General Information

• The midterm will be held on Jul 16 at SLH-E from 7-9pm.
• This is a closed-book, 2-hour test.
• No aids allowed. No calculators allowed. Blank sheets of paper are not allowed.
• The MIPS green card and system call sheets will be provided.

Scope of the Midterm

The scope of the midterm includes all materials covered in the lectures and the labs, up to and including LabD. In particular, you should revise the following important topics:

• Convert numbers (integer and real values) to/from binary, hex and decimal.
• Translate high-level programs (e.g., Java) to assembly programs.
• Convert assembly instructions to machine language and back.
• Understand the fetch-execute cycle concept, performance issues such latencies, CPI, clock rates, bus rates, etc.
• Understand MIPS design issues such as why is there no subi instruction in MIPS?; why is there no shift-left-arithmetic instruction?.
• Understand memory usage issues such as why don't we store attributes of objects in .data.
• Given a MIPS program, you should be able to figure out the output(s) and values of all the registers used in the program (assuming a 32-bit machine and all integers are signed).
• You should be able to write a sequence of MIPS instructions or a complete MIPS program in order to accomplish a required task. (You are not allowed to use pseudo instructions).
• You should know all the MIPS instructions presented in the MIPS Green Card, what they do and how to use them.
• You should also prepare yourselves by reading chapters 1, 2, and 3 in the textbook.

Sample Midterm and Answers

You can try this sample midterm, compare your answers with its solutions and discuss your questions/answers with other students in the Discussion Group.

Midterm Solutions

Midterm Solutions