r/Purdue • u/whynoms CS + Physics + Math 2029 • Aug 07 '26
Academics✏️ just got the maximum on cs240 final AMA
I think I have an A+
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u/Future_Doughnut_732 Aug 07 '26
Will there be a curve?? if not its cooked for me
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u/whynoms CS + Physics + Math 2029 Aug 07 '26
so the main issue is, is we assume HW/Quizzes at 90%, we have the average student sitting at 70%. thus, likely a 5-7.5% curve is incoming. I currently have a 91.59 is what I calculated with getting max on two exams and an 83 on the first. so I would need to be curved 3.5% to get an A at all
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u/Decrypted13 Ph.D. Student, Mathematics Aug 07 '26
So no one got above an 90? Yikes.... I'm sorry, best of luck.
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u/Enchanted-2-meet-you Comp. Sc. '28 Aug 07 '26
Mean of 62 is nasty, what a shitty class
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u/Ok-Store-2788 Boilermaker Aug 07 '26
Better than most classes I’ve taken lol. Lowest average I’ve seen was in the 30s
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u/Enchanted-2-meet-you Comp. Sc. '28 Aug 07 '26
The final cs 250 midterm last sem had a 38 mean. Genuinely on pace for an A all semester just for one exam to fuck me over
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u/whynoms CS + Physics + Math 2029 Aug 07 '26
ameranis is actually a really good lecturer. he purposefully makes difficult exams however, which I don’t mind because he curves a fair bit. you have to take the time to understand the practice which leads to a significant increase in your exam grade.
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u/QuantumChaosXO Aug 07 '26
Incoming student here. Damn is this the normal range, or is it just bc summer? Whats the standard at Purdue, although im assuming it varies by course. Like whats a normal high school 95, or A, it terms of this.
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u/ColdResolution6184 Aug 07 '26
Summer courses are usually easier, however, I've not taken this course specifically so I can't really speak for it. But in general, yes, this is a normal range. As for the high-school 95, there's no "set" number.
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u/QuantumChaosXO Aug 07 '26
Alright thanks. Oh btw, is there a GPA distinction between A and A+. Like is A+ 4 and A 3.7 or something, or are both 4s?
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u/Wiley_Burner Purdue Aug 07 '26
Bro thinks he’s getting an A+ 😭
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u/QuantumChaosXO Aug 07 '26
Haha fair enough. I'm just asking since I've done a fair bit of c++ programming and even done a bit of bitwise stuff like the guy below mentioned bc I was doing some work with Morton Numbers.
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u/Wiley_Burner Purdue Aug 07 '26
Bro thinks Morton will save him from Purdue CS 😭
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u/QuantumChaosXO Aug 07 '26
Lol, it was just an example. Yeah I've been doing a bit more reading and the difficulty is crazy, might as well try though. My target area is low latency c++ so I have decent prior experience, so I'm pretty confident in picking up the course quickly. I've also done a fair bit of CUDA so I have dome experience with memory management.
Think I at least have a good shot at it.
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u/minecon1776 Aug 07 '26 edited Aug 07 '26
To actually answer your question rather than insult you about something you couldnt possibly know about being new, yes, Purdue courses do usually have a lower GPA for A- than A, but A and A+ are usually the same being 4.0. It does vary by course though and you want to check the syllabus for cutoffs, which are often lowered a few % at the end of the semester when they curve. Some courses will also curve individual exams, or change how much of your grade exams/hw/quizzes/projects are weighted for curving. Some courses dont add the + and - modifiers and just do A, B, C, etc, but this is less common. What a "highschool 95" would be is hard to say without knowing what kind of high school you come from and the specific course, but they do curve the courses, so that cs 240 exam taker could very well be seeing an A on his transcript with a 70 or 80 in the class if nobody did much better than that. I would say its very rare to see curves more than 5% or so, but it can happen. Of course, this is one of those things where it varys by course and professor as to how they grade. In highschool, there was probably a very clear and consistent grading standard all teachers had to adhere to. In college, professors get much more freedom about how they garde and this can be good or bad depending on who you get (you will get bad profs, but you get good ones too). Just dont take CS240 with Turkstra. Getting a 4.0 GPA is pretty rare after the first year for majors like CS, engineering, math, and others, but this is fine, since your GPA is just a small part of your resume anyways.
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u/QuantumChaosXO Aug 07 '26
Alright, thank you for this. I'll make sure to avoid turkstra and start looking up the syllabus for courses.
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u/Lokiner876 Aug 07 '26
As someone who took this course and failed it was quite different compared to the normal CS240 class lol. Bitwise and enum was all throughout it and midterm 2 was an easier homework problem on lab computers but it only had 4 functions and one of them was bitwise. Homework’s were much much easier besides the second week ones, though I don’t know if it’s because Turkastra wanted to make them over 500 lines for no reason or if it’s because it’s the summer. Will say midterms overall were harder because it dealt with more obscure stuff.
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u/Future_Doughnut_732 Aug 07 '26 edited Aug 07 '26
Felt the same way about the midterms. I will say, though, he is a great professor; the midterms were challenging for me as well because the questions were much more specific, and taking it during the summer didn't help due to it being fast paced which I expected.
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u/Lokiner876 Aug 07 '26
Oh absolutely, his exams are brutal but so far he has been my favorite CS professor, been very nice each time I have talked with him.
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u/Future_Doughnut_732 Aug 07 '26
Om nom nom
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u/whynoms CS + Physics + Math 2029 Aug 07 '26
he made an exam so good even the tas liked it 🥹
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u/QuantumChaosXO Aug 07 '26
Looks like I'll try and get him then. Are he and Turkstra the only ca 240 professors or are there more?
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u/whynoms CS + Physics + Math 2029 Aug 07 '26
no, there are other professors. the main thing is that Turkstra has a higher probability to teach in the “on semesters” when you’re taking 240. the “off semesters” can be taught by pretty much anyone, ameranis is a newer teacher and got that responsibility of teaching in the summer and the fall, but I know borkowski has taught it, and probably another teacher but I’m not sure. borkowski is a fairly good teacher but ameranis is just outclassed
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u/QuantumChaosXO Aug 07 '26
If I pass my 180 credit exam I'll be taking 240 now in fall, so that works out nicely then.
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u/QuantumChaosXO Aug 07 '26
Really? I heard a lot of stuff in the sub earlier about him so I was gonna try and avoid him when registering, was it just localized to cheating?
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u/Future_Doughnut_732 Aug 07 '26
Oh that was Turkstra I believe... this is a diff professor his name is Ameranis
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u/Mr_Perhaps Aug 07 '26
You’re probably thinking of Turkstra, avoid that guy at all costs. This summer was Ameranis and he has been the best CS professor I’ve had ever. Super funny, personable guy, who cares about the classes success.
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u/purplejuiceboxes Boilermaker Aug 07 '26
You can generally think of an A as somewhere between 1 and 2 standard deviations from the mean. In this case, you can probably assume an 80 is an A for this particular exam
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u/whynoms CS + Physics + Math 2029 Aug 07 '26
so it depends. Ameranis has taught both CS 180 & CS 240 now, and I’ve taken both classes. the way he teaches is as follows: amazing lectures, so you’ll definitely learn the content, but his exams are brutal so you HAVE to study said content and EVERYTHING about it. professors will always have different grading schemes, but usually they have a set MAX grade boundary. essentially, that means if you get this percent, you’re at LEAST getting this letter. for cs180, he did not do this policy, vs cs 240 he gave A- as a 90%, and A/A+ as a 95%. he… does not expect that from anyone, indeed the max on exams + hundreds on rest gets you a 93.7, not even an A. thus, he expects to have to curve at least 5%, I expect a 5-7.5% curve on this class, but in CS 180 I got a 85 and that was an A, so at least a 8-15 percent curve
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u/ToothLumpy5087 Aug 07 '26
what was the final exam like? mcq or not? what do you suggest to do to pass CS240? Like any advice or something? Congrats btw
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u/whynoms CS + Physics + Math 2029 Aug 07 '26
gracias! for ameranis at least, he made the final exam very similar to the midterm. essentially, there were about 10 points from T/F questions, another 8 from "select all that apply", about 50 from short free response, and 36 from more in-depth free response. (doesn't add to 100 but you get what I mean). for advice, I personally read the book before the class even started, doing a lot of the exercises in there, which helped me greatly before having to see them in class. he is a GREAT lecturer, and I would advise taking notes on everything in the class, and review EVERYTHING on the slides for exams. for homework, at least in the summer, he was much fairer than turkstra in assigning work. instead of taking about 25-30 hours, they took about 10, which you could cut down with office hours. overall, you mainly need to be disciplined. I hope you do well!
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u/ToothLumpy5087 Aug 08 '26
Thank you! btw was wondering if it’s okay if you could send the practice midterms/final exam from this semester. just wanted to prep beforehand. I lost the practice exams i downloaded. It’s okay if it’s not possible for you.
Thank you and once again congrats1
u/whynoms CS + Physics + Math 2029 Aug 08 '26
yeah I could, but honestly it’ll be easier in semester if you’d want to meet up
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u/ToothLumpy5087 Aug 08 '26
is it possible for you want to send me over dms or outlook idk
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u/whynoms CS + Physics + Math 2029 Aug 09 '26
I could send it over dms here or on discord (same handle as here, whynoms)
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u/ToothLumpy5087 Aug 10 '26
sorry for the late reply. yep jsut sent the request on discord. Thanks man! btw does the book cover everything in the class?
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u/whynoms CS + Physics + Math 2029 Aug 10 '26
not exactly. the book covers everything syntax wise. what it does not cover is everything data structure and memory wise. you’ll have to learn those in class. also, K&R does not cover everything in C. instead, you’d want to read Beej’s book to programming in C
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u/No_Basket_5584 Aug 07 '26
For 180 last semester the total exams average score adds up to 183, and for 240 the total exams average score adds up to 191. 180s exams were worth 65 (correct if I’m mistaken), and 240s were worth 70. I need at least a 7% curve to make it through, what are the chances of that? I need this so bad, I’ve worked insanely hard
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u/Future_Doughnut_732 Aug 07 '26 edited Aug 07 '26
Same i need a 7% curve too for C cutoff if code standard went well on midterm2, hoping cutoffs will be announced soon. I'm kinda frustrated though because i messed up on midterm 2 because of other circumstances affecting my life which ruined like my whole grade
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u/whynoms CS + Physics + Math 2029 Aug 07 '26
to let you know, last sem in CS180 they curved anyone that had a 58-70 to a C. the average was sitting at ~68.
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u/True_World708 Aug 07 '26
What stopped you from getting 100%?
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u/whynoms CS + Physics + Math 2029 Aug 14 '26
it was a few questions, I forgot a thing in the format specifier, incorrect/incomplete definition of compiling, incorrect selection of what this term meant, etc.
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u/Lukun7 Aug 07 '26
did anyone cheat? did you cheat? do you think they're gonna get caught
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u/whynoms CS + Physics + Math 2029 Aug 07 '26
if they did cheat, they were caught during the exam. ameranis is pretty serious about cheating and goes through the exam hall. the only times he gets mad is really when someone either doesn’t try and cheats on HW orrr cheats on exams. then he goes “Om nom nom” and eats them
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u/Fun_Astronomer4226 Aug 09 '26
Wonderful result; a high score is always such a satisfying result 🎉🎉🥳🥳.
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u/Extreme_Category6121 Aug 13 '26
Bro genuinely how 😭. I failed last sem and I'm acc so scared for next sem despite spending all summer studying. I'm pretty confident on the material but I somehow always seem to do ass on the tests so ig i js dont know how to study. Do you have any tips for us mere mortals?
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u/whynoms CS + Physics + Math 2029 Aug 14 '26
firstly, I’ll actually be a TA next sem (Th 3:30-5:30) so I encourage you to go to lab/office hours! the one thing that really did help me was doing the actual reading from K&R or Beej. I really got the idea of C from doing a LOT of the programming exercises they have in the book. Ameranis is also WAY better than Turkstra, he typically gives a practice exam which has quite a lot in common with the actual one. ESPECIALLY when exam season rolls around, I encourage you to go to lab/OH to get help on EVERY question you don’t know. you’ll see some repeats on the exam to what you did on the practice, so that’s your best shot. again, I’ll be happy to explain anything you got so come to my lab/OH! finally, ameranis is a much better lecturer than Turkstra, he like genuinely cares about students succeeding in the course, with a typical 7-12% curve after it’s all said and done.
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u/Mr_Perhaps Aug 07 '26