Chapter 7 Questionnaire for Student Beta Tester There is less in this than meets the eye Tallulah Bankhead, Remark to Alexander Wollcott, 1922 A note from the authors: While we are trying our hardest to remove mistakes and ambiguities from the material we are presenting, we are sure that there are some awful blunders and awkward sentences that make the material much harder than it should be. Thanks for "volunteering" to test this material. While you cannot know the quality of alternative texts, we can assure you that we wouldn't have spent the time writing this material if we didn't think that this explanation of ideas, even in this rough form, wasn't superior to the alternatives. By letting us know the mistakes, the poorly explained ideas, or--heaven forbid-- even complements on what you read, we can assure you future generations of students will benefit from your sacrifices. While it may seem that competent professionals should be able to write more clearly than this, the experience of all authors is that feedback is the only sure way to improve. If you could record the mistakes that you find as you read the material and then write what you think is the poorly or well explained on completing the material, we would appreciate it. Thanks, Dave and John. There are two sections to this questionnaire. Part A has questions we would like you to answer . Part B outlines instructions and rewards ($$$) for reporting bugs! A. Answer Questions. Please send your answers to the following questions to us at this address cod2bugs@mkp.com and enter chapter 7 in the subject heading. Please cc your instructor on this email. (Note: Save the answers to questions 1 and 2 as you will need to resend them with each set of chapter answers.) 1. What is the name of your school? 2. Please list the computer science courses have you taken before beginning this course. What other computer science courses are you taking this semester? As of the beginning of this course, what year/semester student are you? (e.g., second semester sophomore). 3. Which sections of chapter 7 did you read? Please identify the chapters or appendixes you read before reading Chapter 7. Please list the numbers of the exercises you were assigned to complete for chapter 7. 4. Did the authors define the new terms they used in this chapter? (check the best answer.) _____Yes, all or most new terms were defined. _____Sometimes new terms were not defined very well. _____No, the new terms were often unexplained or unclear to me. 5. Which, if any, terms were not clearly explained to you? List as many examples as you can. 6. Did you find the material in this chapter to be (check the best answer.) _____too easy because I've already studied this in an earlier course _____too easy because the explanations were so obvious _____challenging, but not too difficult _____too hard because the text assumed I understood more than I did 7. What were the clearest or most interesting topics of this chapter, and why did you like them? 8.A. What were the most difficult or confusing topics for you in this chapter? 8.B. What could the authors do to make the topic or topics clearer? (For example, was there a particular sentence or paragraph that confused you? Would photos or diagram help clarify the material? 9. What do you think is the most important new idea you learned from reading this chapter? 10. Although we explain the concepts of caches, virtual memory, and TLBs independently, all three rely on the same principles. Is this clear? 11. Were you able to understand and work through the exercises assigned to you for this chapter? If not, which exercises did you have trouble with. (Please refer to the exercise number.) $$$$$ Bug Hunt: B. Report errors in the text to cod2bugs@mkp.com and enter page# in the subject heading to reference the page number on which the bug occurs. Please let us know of any errors, inconsistences, or incomprehensible sentences. In particular, your careful reading of the text, figures, and exercises will point to many technical problems that could not be found by even the most careful of proof readers. Please do not report problems of grammar, punctuation, spelling, or style. We will send you a check of $1 per bug or technical advisory for the first reported instance of each bug or technical advisory that is accepted by the authors, provided that you have included your permanent mailing address in your email. Please submit your bugs and technical advisories to cod2bugs@mkp.com and enter page# in the subject heading to reference the page number on which the bug occurs. Remember, only one bug per email, and reports of grammatical, spelling, style, or punctuation errors will not be counted as legitimate bugs. Please be sure to cc your instructor on this email. ______________________