MT1 Info

Spring 2026 Canary: The following information HAS NOW been updated for Spring 2026!

Overview and Process

The test will be IN PERSON

• Time/Date: 7pm-8:40pm Feb 26th
  • The test will be set for 1 hour, 40 minutes
  • If you have USC approved accommodations, you must upload your accomodation information HERE 7 days before the exam, otherwise you will not be able to use your accommodations.
• Location: THH 101 & 102
  • Leave empty seats between each student.

  • Do NOT sit in the back row.

  • If you have OSAS accommodations you should schedule your exam at the OSAS offices on Thursday during OSAS hours
• The test will be taken on paper. Be prepared a pencil/pen.
• The exam is Closed book, Closed notes, Closed Internet (search/reference). You may use your mind, and blank scratch paper but nothing else. No referencing your labs, homeworks, etc.

Topics and Style

The exam is a mix of short answer, multiple choice, analysis, tracing, and coding. We will visually grade your code and be fairly lenient with small syntax errors (e.g. a missing semicolon).

Unit 2a-2f - Review of CS 103 and CS 170

• Memory allocation (when to use dynamic allocation)
• Scope and lifetime of variables
• Pointers, references
• Runtime (we will provide your basic series formulas)
• Linked lists
• Classes (access modifiers), construction, destructions, initialization lists, use of const )
• Operator overloading
• Copy Constructors / Assignment Operators / Rule of 3.

Unit 3 - Recursion

• Simple recursion
• Tracing of recursive functions
• Understanding order of execution (head vs. tail recursion)
• Linked list recursion coding

Unit 4 - ADTS

• List, Set, Map, Priority Queue, Queue, Stack
• ADT Identification: When to use each given a problem description

Unit 5 - STL

• Iterators and their use
• std::map usage and runtime of its operations
• std::set usage and runtime of its operations

Unit 6 - Inheritance and Polymorphism

• Order or construction/destruction of parent/child classes
• Public, private, protected members
• Public, private, protected inheritance
• Inheritance vs. Composition relationships (is-a vs. has-a)
• virtual functions (static vs. dynamic binding)
• Abstract classes and pure virtual functions
• Tracing of polymorphic code execution
• Class hierarchy and design

Unit 7 - Queues and Stack

• Implementation options and their efficiency
• ArrayBased list implementations (resizing and its runtime)
• Queue, stack and deque implementations
• Applications of queues and stacks

Practice Materials

Note: Spring ‘26 has reorganized all former sample midterms into the topical index shown below and added more problems.

Topic-Based Problems

• Runtime
  • Q1, Sol1
  • Q2, Sol2
• Linked Lists and Recurion
  • Q1 , Sol1
  • Q2, Sol2
  • Q3, Sol3
  • Q4, Sol4
• ADTs
  • Q1, Sol1
  • Q2, Sol2
  • Q3, Sol3
  • Q4, Sol4
• Class Hierarchy
  • Q1, Sol1
• Polymorphism
  • Q1, Sol1
• Inheritance, Runtime, and Data Structure Coding
  • Q1, Sol1
• Data Structure Coding
  • Q1, Sol1
  • Q2, Sol2
  • Q3, Sol3
  • Q4, Sol4
  • Q5, Sol5