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Exam Preparation, Exams, Grading
Each course at ETH works slightly differently in this regard. Some courses offer a grade bonus for completing assignments during the semester, while others don't. Others still have parts of the grade determined by project work or similar, while there is one course in particular that has exam-like optional quizzes twice in the semester, which can be 10% of your final grade, each, if they improve your grade.
The most important platform is VIS Community Solutions (typically referred to as ComSol), the online platform for old exams, summaries and Cheat Sheets, available at https://exams.vis.ethz.ch
Bonus
During the semester, you hand in assignments, solve quizzes or do coding tasks to get a score. The graded assignments are a subset of the weekly (or bi-weekly) assignments in the course (typically a strict subset). For those assignments it is important that you absolutely do NOT collaborate with other people, as this is viewed the same as cheating at exams by ETH, of course unless explicitly stated otherwise, as it should be the case in Algorithms and Data structures. Giving someone a hint though could possibly be considered acceptable.
Grade bonuses typically are either up to 0.25 or 0.5 grades, often linearly interpolated between 0 and the maximum, depending on the achieved score during semester. All first semester courses work this way.
I highly recommend that you do these assignments not just for the bonus, but to get feedback from your TA on your solutions. It also forces you to do the exercises, which helps you prepare for the exams.
Exam Preparation
Studying for the exams can be a daunting task, but it is not that bad, if you plan properly. The most important tip I can give you here is to also factor in a day off each week, because you will likely not be able to keep going at eight or more hours a day, seven days a week for too long. Thus, factor in a slower day, or completely ETH-free day during the Lernphase.
It is thus important that during the semester you really try to solve the exercises on your own, completely without the help of AI. As tempting as it may seem to use AI for the bonus, don't. Not only won't you learn much from it, it's also illegal. Even using it for sanity checks is not strictly okay and should thus be avoided.
Using AI during the Lernphase to get different explanations for concepts on the contrary may be a better idea, but make sure to always double check.
Also see the page on AI here.
Summaries, Cheat Sheets
In the first semester in both subjects in which you can bring a summary, you need to be the author and in Discrete Maths, it even needs to be handwritten.
Thus, I recommend that during the semester you write your Cheat Sheet as you go along.
I would not recommend risking it by using a Cheat Sheet from ComSol, you can however take them as inspiration or adapt one, if people have shared the LaTeX source files in case of Linear Algebra in the first Semester. All my summaries that are on ComSol (apart from the one for DDCA) have the source code available here
Old Exams
While studying with summaries is good to get an understanding of the topic, you should also practice using old exams, to familiarize yourself with the mode of exams and to get a feeling for the difficulty of the exams. It is also great practice, as you have more topic-agnostic tasks in many cases here. Also make sure to occasionally solve one with a timer to experience time pressure, as that is also a major factor in many of the exams.
However, first solve at least one older exam without the time pressure, making sure you understand what you are doing, then add the time constraints. Don't put off solving one for too long, as exams can very much expose weaknesses rather brutally, so be prepared to not do well in your first exam. It is of utmost importance to consider that normal, don't be put off by it (this happens to a large part of students at ETH), take the learnings, update your Cheat Sheets or your notes, maybe go back to the exercises from the semester, and solve these exercises again that you struggled with.
On ComSol, many people put in a lot of effort to properly explain how they got to a given solution, many of which ended up being (or are currently) TAs in the course, so take their advice and see how that could apply to your understanding.
Exams
ETH exams typically take place on Hönggerberg (in the HIL building) and in the ONA building in Oerlikon. Make sure to arrive especially early for the first exams in each of these locations to account for having to search for the rooms, or trains or buses not running for some reason. While it is possible to get into an exam after it has already started, this won't help your cause and if somebody has already left, you won't be let in anymore, so being there at least one train rotation earlier is a good idea.
Make sure to bring some food (that doesn't make much sound!), water and enough pens to the exams and don't forget your LEGI and Cheat Sheets, where you are allowed to bring them.
::: details Note on the HIL building HIL can be a bit confusing. The HIL F41 and G41 rooms are best accessed through the main entrance, which is the many doors to the right when walking from the bus stop into the atrium of HIL. :::
What if I am sick at an exam?
This is the official ETH document for the exams. It is also accessible as a link in MyStudies via the Session Examinations tab.
First of all, it is important that you don't go to an exam if you don't feel well enough to achieve a good score, or if you have a contagious infection, as that would put the other students at risk.
If you ever have to miss an exam as a result of falling sick, these are the things you need to do.
For end of term exams
In most cases, you need to contact the teaching team at least an hour before the start of the exam. You can do that either via Email (from your ETH email) or by phone, telling them that you are sick. Typically no doctor's note is required in these cases.
If you fall ill still before the end of the official de-registration period and know that you won't make it to the exam, simply de-register
For session exams that are NOT part of a block
Contact the exams office from your ETH email address, or call them, both at least an hour before the start of the exam. That's it, you are de-registered from the exam and you can simply sign up to the repetition exam.
If you fall ill still before the end of the official de-registration period and know that you won't make it to the exam, simply de-register
For session exams that are part of a block
This is only relevant to the first year students at D-INFK. You need to contact the exams office from your ETH email address, or call them, both at least an hour before the start of the exam. Then, make a doctors appointment to get your doctors note. This is required to suspend an examination block. As soon as you have that, email it to the exams office from your ETH email address.
You will be retaking the exam the following semester.