INFSCI 2710 - Database Management

(Spring 2000, CRN 20727)

Notes about Midterm Exam

The midterm exam will be next week, February 23.
If you submit your solution to Homework 4 and 5 today (as you should), you will get it back before the midterm exam.
I will answer questions before the exam for approximately 30-45 min.
So we will start about 6:30-6:45.
You will have two hours to finish the exam.
Please bring a picture ID (e.g. Pitt ID) with you. I might check it for a few randomly selected students.
Please try to sit not immediately next to your friends. It is too tempting and dangerous. It is important that I and Siripun cannot get the impression that you tried to cheat.
Space for the solutions will be provided on the exam.
If you don't understand the exercise, you can ask me during the exam.
Exercises might be, e.g., of the following types:
- Design an Entity-Relationship-Schema for a given application (similar to Homework 1-3).
- Given an ER-diagram, find errors.
- Compare two given ER-diagrams. Are they equivalent with respect to their information content? Is one better?
- Write queries in relational algebra and SQL (as Homework 4 and 5). SQL queries will be very simple (corresponding to the material covered in Part 2 of the handouts).
- Given queries in relational algebra or SQL, find errors or test for equivalence.
- Given queries in relational algebra or SQL, explain in natural language what it means.
- Multiple-Choice questions about keys, foreign keys, and other constraints. Possibly also about advantages/functions of database systems, schema design phases, the ER-model, and the relational model.
The translation from the ER-model into the relational model will only be subject of the final exam. However, understanding it might help you with other exercises in the midterm exam.

Stefan Brass (sbrass@sis.pitt.edu), February 16, 2000

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