Observations on the Final:
General
Grades tremendously suffered because a lot of students do sloppy work: messy
write-up leading to forgetting terms, decimals moving around, etc. A couple of
students in this class broke the record in turning in the most "unreadable"
finals.
In general, this was a good class. I broke my record of giving A+ and A in
this course.
Problem 1. (OpAmp) Almost all of students got
this problem right. Good job!
Problem 2. (Non-Inverting Amplifier) For reasons that I do not
understand, most of the students used an active filter and set the cut-off
frequency of the filter to 100 kHz. First, the problem does not specify what
happens for frequencies above 100 kHz, so why a filter? Second, if the
cut-off frequency is 100 kHz, the gain should be -3dB lower than the DC
value not the same. Third, active low-pass filter that we worked in the
class gives a 180 degree phase shift for DC signals (the problem did NOT
have a phase shift).
Problem 3. (Low-pass filter). A sizable fraction of students designed a
high-pass filter!
Problem 4. (BJT NOR Gate). Most got this right.
Problem 5. (FET Bias). More than half got this right, good Job. A lot of
students dismissed VGS = - 4.2V out of hand as being unphysical without
explanation. Some said that it cannot be negative because the circuit is
biased by a positive voltage source (It can if the voltage at S is larger than
voltage at G).
Problem 6. (BJT amplifier Design) Almost all got this right.
Problem 7. (Diode). Very few people got this right. More than half of
the class got vo when diode is ON or OFF correctly but could not find the
range of vi that leads to diode being on or off.