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First Java AP Computer Science Exam Complete
BlindSpy writes "Yesterday, Tuesday May 4th, high-school students all over the U.S. took the first-ever Advanced Placement Computer Science College Board exam based on Java. The exam is given as an opportunity for high-school students to earn college credit in programming. The test is based on whichever language colleges are looking for, which signifies a significant step for Java. In past years, the exam has been based on C++ (1 year) and Pascal (around 10 years)." If you took the exam, what were your impressions?
For C++ you get 3 hours. For the new Java test, you get all day.
FWIW, I'm currently employed as a developer, and I'm glad to see our young people being tested on their knowledge of Java.
After all, if being a developer has taught me anything...it's that I need to know all about my caffiene. [grin]
RomSteady - I came, I saw, I tested. GamerTag: RomSteady / http://www.romsteady.net
The exam takes too long to complete, and requires way too much memory as well. They should go back to Pascal, as it was more efficient.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
REMINDER
It is against the College Board rules to discuss the multiple choice problems EVER in your life, and you must wait 2 days after the date of the test to discuss the free response questions. Failure to adhere to CollegeBoard rules may result in invalidation of your scores, loss of privilege to take future AP exams, and legal action may be taken against you. (Those who take APs should be familiar with this statement)
Basically, the entire test was over ArrayList and recursion, the two things we spent perhaps a good ten minutes reviewing the whole year. Screw the college board for switching to Java. In fact, screw the college board in general. Basically, there are two questions I'll tell you (there's a lot of lame laws about not talking about the test, so you didn't see me do this) 1. How many times do you want to punch Leon Schram (author of "Exposure Java" CDROM book series) in the balls? (cirlce one) 1 2 3 4 5 The correct answer to that one is circling all of them. 12,345 times. 2. How many fists do you want to use in the acts described in question one? (free response) Basically write something about "all available limbs and body parts"
I was sure they were going to go with Forth this year.
2) Describe the benefits of a hashtable
it keeps your hash off the floor.
I've had this sig for three days.
It's hard to write pseudo code in scantron bubles.... This is a good thing as multiple choice got me this far in life...
> 2) Describe the benefits of a hashtable If you keep a hashtable, you know who's flat you've got to knock over when you really need a toke.
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
"In past years, the exam has been based on C++ (1 year) and Pascal (around 10 years)."
That might explain why I did so poorly several years ago when I tried to take the test based on Java.
Bada-bing-bada-boom. The one day project! Massively parallel programming! Now, if only I can find away to harness the power of bajillions of people sorting playing cards in solitaire to crack encryption codes! Muahahah!!!
[coughs] [takes medicine] Alright, I'm okay now.
The meek shall inherit the earth, in 3 by 6 plots. - Lazerus Long
What the hell is with all this highschool crap on /.? /. become some place for high school loosers to hang out?
Since when did
Oh, since, well let me think...SINCE FOREVER!
The math department head at my high school said I had to take calculus in order to take the C++ class. I said calculus is a bullshit prerequisite for C++ (since, you know, C++ has nothing to do with calculus). She refused to make an exception for me.
At the end of the year I demanded to be allowed to take the test to prove to her that the prerequisites were garbage and that the school was probably too clueless to teach C++ anyway. She couldn't refuse (the AP classes are not mandatory) and so I took the test, although she insisted that I reconsider and that I should take the classes and that I'm otherwise wasting everyone's time.
It turns out that I was the only one in my entire school to show up for the test.
I scored a 5 (the highest score). Came in and stapled that to her forehead.
Spite: it's what's for dinner.
Oh, since, well let me think...SINCE FOREVER
:0
shouldn't that have been:
Oh, since, well let me think...SINCE 4 EVAR!!!
So should the AP Physics exam be entirely in mathematical symbols and formulae? After all, there's no nead for a language like ENGLISH in a SCIENCE exam!
It's always a long day... 86400 doesn't fit into a short.
"If you took the exam, what were your impressions?"
I did an impression of Richard Stallman and demanded that my exam paper be released under the GNU GPL.
I then shaved my beard off and did an impression of Bill Gates and claimed that my fellow classmates were unamerican by not charging the going rate for solving the problems presented by the examiners.
Finally, I doffed my smelly clothes and put on a charming two piece suit and in my best Steve Jobs voice, suggested to the attending tutors that my exam be given the highest marks because it looked more attractive than eveyone elses -- the pinstripe shading on my paper took ages to complete.
1. Write a function called "swap(x,y) that has the same effect as the pseudocode "t=x; x=y; y=t;".
:-D
2. Define a new data type called "TableIndex" which is a synonym for the "int" basic type. (If your programming language does not support "typedef," a macro is an acceptable substitute.)
3. Illustrate how to parameterize your swap() from #1 so that it will work with any basic type (e.g via function templates or macros).
4. Create an array of integers, and illustrate how to resize the array. (Since dynamic-casting is obviously poor programming practice, feel free to utilize class templates if the language does not natively support resizable arrays.)
5. Write a function that accepts a variable number of floating point arguments and returns their average.
6. Without relying on a compiler from another programming environment, show how to call some simple functions from a C DLL.
7. A mobile robot has 3 states, "roam", "sleep", and "evade". For a collection of 100 robots, demonstrate how an array of function pointers could be used to represent these states.
Uh... hold on a sec! Java doesn't HAVE pointers, typedefs, templates, macros, resizable arrays, ability to call C functions, argument lists, or function pointers!
Cheers,
-Gonz