1COMS4507/7507
Week 13
Information on Final Exam
Marius Portmann
2COMS4507/7507 Final
Will be held as a centrally scheduled online non-invigilated (no
ProctorU) Blackboard Test
When
8 July, 4pm (I think)
You must check this on your Personalised Timetable !!!!
Working Time
Total of 2 hours
90 minutes regular Working Time + 30 minutes extra time for potential
online issues (no perusal time)
Exam is Open Book
For more details, have a look at the Exam Cover Sheet,
which is available on Blackboard
Under “Announcements”
Final Exam - What is covered?
What is covered
All lecture content presented by Naipeng, myself and
Peter Robinson (Ethereum)
• Plus corresponding Required Reading
All Seminars
What is not covered
Guest Lecture by Dr Paul Ashley
Guest Lecture by Dr David Hyland-Wood
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4Final Exam Format
Total 70 Marks
Rough guideline for time allocation: 1 mark ~ 1.5 min
3 Parts
Part A: 10 MC Questions (20 marks)
• Answer all questions (Q1 – Q10)
• Questions on Lecture Content
Part B: 5 Short Answer Questions (20 marks)
• Answer all questions (Q11 – Q15)
• Questions on Lecture Content
• Mix of short answer and problem solving questions.
Part C: Mix of Essay-style and short answer questions
• Choose and Answer 3 questions from a pool of 4 (30 marks)
• Questions on Seminar Presentations
5Final Exam – Part C
Additional Rule
You cannot choose a question on your own seminar topic
If one of the questions is about your own seminar presentation, you
have an additional question that you can choose from
Everybody has equal amount of choice, i.e. pool of 4 questions
to choose 3 from
Example
Part C questions on topics:
#1, #5, #3, #7
Extra Question: #13
If you presented one of the 4 topics, you cannot choose
that question, and your choice of questions would be
reduced to 3 out of 3.
In this case, you can add the Extra Question #13 to your pool of
questions from which to choose 3 from.
Final Exam Cover Sheet
Blackboard Announcements
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EXAMPLE EXAM QUESTIONS
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Part A Multiple Choice Question
Which one of the following statements regarding Bitcoin and
Ethereum is correct? (choose the best answer)
a) In Bitcoin, account balances are stored in the block state.
b) In Bitcoin, computation and data storage on the blockchain needs
to be paid for by Gas.
c) Ethereum is in the process of transitioning to a Proof of Stake
(PoS) consensus algorithm.
d) The cost of storing 1 KB of data on the Ethereum blockchain
(permanent storage) is a fixed Dollar amount.
e) None of the other statements is correct.
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Part B Short Answer Questions
Example 1) [3 marks]
Explain what a Merkle Tree is, and how it is used in Bitcoin.
Example 2) [3 marks] Bitcoin Proof of Work
Consider the following proof of work puzzle as an alternative to the
current hash-cash based approach in Bitcoin.
Solving the puzzle consists of multiplying two very large integers, e.g.
with thousands of digits each.
Discuss pros and cons of this proof of work approach in the context
of Bitcoin.
This year, all Part B Questions have equal marks (4 marks)
Some questions might require simple calculations, so a
calculator might be handy.
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Part C Seminar Questions - Example 1
Paper #2: DAMIANI, E., ET AL. A reputation-based
approach for choosing reliable resources in peer-
to-peer networks
Describe what the XREP protocol presented in the paper
tries to achieve, and discuss the basic mechanisms that
it is using.
Further discuss for what environments it can be applied
and describe its limitations and vulnerabilities.
Describe the relevance of the parameter K in the
proposed protocol.
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Part C Seminar Questions - Example 2
Paper #19
Aurasium: Practical Policy Enforcement for
Android Applications
Describe at a high level what Aurasium is, and
the key goals it is trying to achieve.
Describe how Aurasium interacts with the Android
system and applications.
Describe if and how malicious application can
detect the presence of Aurasium.
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Old Exam Papers
You can also have a look at COMS4507/7507
exam papers from previous years via the UQ
Library website.
However
Structure of this year’s exam is a bit different.
Scope is also different, e.g. we did not cover things
like Secret Sharing, Zero-Knowledge proofs, etc.,
which were covered and examined in previous years.
Seminar topics are different.
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Tips for Answering Part C Questions
Try to be concise
Don’t write a novel, don’t repeat yourself
Focus on the key points
Be prepared and organised
Make sure you understand the basic concepts.
You won’t have much time for reading entire papers
during the exam, but you will have time to check
some details.
In general, try to be efficient, you don’t have too
much time.
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For Further Questions
Consultation (via Zoom)
When: 17 June (Wednesday), 1pm – 4pm
• You need to book a time slot, so I can schedule a
zoom meeting and send you the link. Just send
me an email.
• Please also email me also the list of questions you
have prior to the meeting.
Via Blackboard discussion forum
Benefit: answers are shared
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Any questions about the exam?
Student Evaluation of
Course and Teaching (SECaT)
I would appreciate if you could fill in the evaluation form.
Your feedback is important, especially this semester.
The evaluation should be open now, and you should have received an
email with the details.
You can access the evaluation via:
https://itali.uq.edu.au/for-students/have-your-say-secat-and-setutor-evaluations
If there is a problem accessing the evaluation form, please let me know,
or directly contact the evaluations section:
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Thanks for your participation!
Good Luck with the Exams!
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