Category Archives: Uncategorized

AP CS A Exam 2013 Wrap-Up

Well,  Another AP Comp Sci Exam has come and gone and I can say that I am kinda sad, but not really.  My crew felt that exam was very familiar, but a bit more tricky than in years past.  I guess I agree with that considering I went over every single thing on the exam 50 plus times.

I have posted my solutions to the questions and a Java start-up project on my A+ site.

Each year I like to post some of the best make-me-laugh / make-me-writhe-in-pain comments heard 48 hours after the exam.  Here is my top 4 list for 2013.  Some of these really did make me cry and not from joy.

Numero Uno – “I know you said that we absolutely had to call part A on part B if it said to do that, but I just went ahead and rewrote my code from part A on part B – I think it mostly worked.”
[ Arggggggggghhhhhh! ]
Numero Dos – “The Grid is a matrix?   When did they change it to that? ”
[ Sneaky, they are. - say this in your best Yoda voice as it is way funnier that way. ]
Numero Tres – “There was a Song problem on the exam just like the one we did in class, but you made us process 10,000 songs and the exam example only used 20 songs.  I was so confused.”
[ I deleted all of the songs from my iPod except for 20. I am now a changed man. ]
Numero Quatro – “You said there would be a matrix of classes on the exam.  You were totally wrong as the test had a matrix of doubles.”
[ Yep, doubles are way more complicated.  Boustrophedon!  ]

I posted my predictions last week and I think I was spot on for the most part.  You can check out the post below.  I did predict a matrix of classes so technically, I was off by one on that one – OBOB.

Have a great summer!
All of those going to grading, have a great time and rock the grading!

Good Luck to all on the AP CS A Exam

Good luck to all on the upcoming AP CS A Exam!

As I have taught the course for nearly twenty years and spent many years studying exam trends as a grading reader, a grading leader, and consultant, I am aware of the main topics to cover, but I really focused heavily on four main areas with my students in prep for this year’s Free Response section.

1.  ArrayList of Classes / References -  there is always a question that requires students to work with an ArrayList<NeverSeenThisClassBefore> that involves lots of drilling down to get to the various pieces.  You must be comfortable with abstraction to handle this type of question.  Working with GridWorld helps!  Working with lists of integers and doubles will not be enough.  Go all of the way back to 2006 and you can see where this whole question thread started.

2.  Make a Class from scratch – you may have to implement an interface or extend an abstract class, but probably not.  That type of question went away about 5 years ago.  More than likely, the students will have to extend Bug or Critter to make a new class that will involve method overriding and such.  Pretty simple, but requires some practice.  You could get an APLine question, but most likely, it will be a GridWorld question.

3.  Processing an Array – this could be an array of classes like last years Horse[] question, but who knows.  2012 was the first year the AP exam had an array of classes / references.  Most of the time the array question just involves some algorithmic stuff with numbers like finding smallest, largest, difference between smallest and largest, etc.

4.  Matrices – matrices are back and boy am I glad.  I love the matrix – what a great movie!  Last year was the hardest matrix question in the world – you had to count 255s!  This year will probably be more like the route cipher from 2011.  I have prepped my students on Matrix[SomeClassFromMars][SomeClassFromMars] as I assume that a matrix of classes would throw a serious curve ball at most students.  I also did some work with transposition ciphers as I really like ciphers.

I will post comments after I see the actual Free Response questions next week and let you know if I was close or not even in the ballpark.  I have been very accurate with my predictions in the past.

If you want to see slides I have used as AP Exam review slides in the past, I have some of those posted that you can download.

If you like my humor and want to spend a week hearing more about how I prep students to rock this exam, check out my workshops over the summer.

Finish Strong and Rock the AP Exam!

UTD High School Programming Contest

The UTD High School Programming Contest is this Saturday the 13th.
Good luck to all competing.
The basic schedule is listed below.
There is still time to register if you are interested.
Contact Dr. Ivor Page if you want in on the fun.

10:40a Practice contest begins
11:30a Pizza and soft drinks for lunch (sponsored by Award Solutions)
12:00p Main Contest Begins

Sofware Developer Demand Growing

The demand for Software Developers will continue to grow and increase 22% by 2020.  I hope my students are listening and reading all of these articles I keep posting.

HP CodeWars is just around the corner.  It should be a good time.  My students have done very well over the last 3 years and we hope to keep that trend going in 2013.  If you are not near a HP CodeWars location, consider hosting your own high school programming contest.  Students love to crank code in a contest setting.

AP Comp Sci 2-Day in San Antonio

Judy Hromcik and Glen Martin will be conducting a 2-Day AP Computer Science Workshop in San Antonio on February 1-2 in conjunction with the College Board’s San Antonio Math & Computer Science Conference.

It should be a rocking event with lots of great information for all!

The event will be held at the Omni San Antonio Hotel at the Colonnade in San Antonio, Texas.

Registration Link  -   https://apps2.collegeboard.com/olrWebApp/olrWebApp/meetingDetail.do?meetingID=3071302013

http://ok.gov/sde/sites/ok.gov.sde/files/AP-SWROFlyer.pdf

Sign up and enjoy the fun!

If you are looking for summer workshops, check out my AP SI listings for the summer of 2013

CS Skills in Manufacturing

CS Skills in Manufacturing

I plan to share this article with my Computer Science classes on Monday.  The article discusses the need for workers with CS related high tech skills, but yet also shows that some of these jobs are not paying much considering what all is required to get the job.  The skill set needed for some of these jobs is quite high, but the pay is quite low.