2010 AP Computer Science Discussion

<p>-125 is the answer hopefully</p>

<p>-125?
10char</p>

<p>-125 I think</p>

<p>yeah -125. Question, are you not allowed to write curly braces with ifs:
if (thing == true) { something = “apples”; }
?</p>

<p>edit: also, has anyone else here never actually programmed : D?</p>

<p>jobbin, that’s syntactically correct</p>

<p>The answer was indeed -125. Great job.</p>

<p>

I’m a professional programmer, but I’ve never written a line of Java. In fact, I don’t even have a compiler on my computer. So I’ll be going into the exam without ever having written a Java program.</p>

<p>I’m kind of nervous. Is Barron’s harder than the real thing?</p>

<p>Lol Jobbin, you never wrote a program in Java? How did you learn?</p>

<p>also something about recursion. if theres a method that calls itself and has something like an S.O.P. statement, the order DOES matter.</p>

<p>i.e.:</p>

<p>void foo(int a)
{
if (a>0)
{
System.out.println(a);
foo(a-1);
}
else
{
System.out.println(a);
}
}</p>

<p>if foo(4) is called, it will print:
4
3
2
1
0</p>

<p>if foo were changed to this, however:
void foo(int a)
{
if (a>0)
{
foo(a-1);
System.out.println(a);
}
else
{
System.out.println(a);
}
}</p>

<p>foo(4) would print out:
0
1
2
3
4</p>

<p>I have a question: What happens if you do something in an unorthodox way on the FRQ, is it just if it works properly you get full credit? Because we took a modified form of the 2009 last week and we did peer grading on the FRQ’s. The other students apparently didn’t understand my code or didn’t give me points because I did it in a different way from what it said to give points for on their grade sheets, so I got marked down, even though the code did the same thing. On the real AP, will this occur?</p>

<p>^ Yes, it may. You may also get full credit for your “unorthodox” solutions. Allow me to explain:</p>

<p>The scoring guidelines do not consist of a properly written segment of code that all students should have. Rather, there are certain criteria that you must meet to receive points. For example, calling a method, traversing an array, etc. As long as you meet those standards, you should be eligible to receive full credit.</p>

<p>Just read Barron’s lol. (EDIT: @Randwulf)</p>

<p>@peterchew: that’s what everyone keeps saying, but this is what happened to me:
Barrons- 31/40 on MCs (9 wrong), 27.5/36 on FRQs (roughly), which by their scale is a 74%, where a 5 is 70%+.
CollegeBoard Course Description Test: 12/22 on MCs (8 wrong, 2 skipped) and I actually only got to #15 before scaled time ran out but that score includes full test, and probably like a 35% on the 2009 FRQs, which I don’t even know what score that would be (2? 1?!?!?!?!?!).</p>

<p>Even after that, I went back to Barron’s and realized I could’ve gotten most of the points I missed, they were either just careless or a simple syntax issue. For college board one, I still don’t understand half the mistakes. I have no clue how they get the answers on some of FRQs , sometimes no clue what the question is even asking.</p>

<p>So basically, I feel like quitting life.</p>

<p>Right. I have 4 more chapters to read from Barrons 2010.</p>

<p>It’s actually really annoying how IB Comp Sci hasn’t prepared me at all for this. I didn’t know anything about Gridworld UNTIL THIS THREAD.</p>

<p>Oh and Jobbin I know what you mean with the confusing as hell questions on the test. Sometimes deciphering the question is harder than actually figuring it out…</p>

<p>/plays more Starcraft 2…</p>

<p>I know right. 2009 3b its like whats going on, I don’t speak Chinese!</p>

<p>Do people discuss multiple choice answers on this thread tomorrow, or is that illegal. But do people do it anyways?</p>

<p>Anyone have any recommendations if I f-kin suck at FRQs? What’s more productive, looking through past FRQs and trying to understand them (and probably failing), or just memorizing all of Barron’s tonight?</p>

<p>No one at my school has ever taken AP CS, so I guess a 2/3 is…ah no wth I want a 5!</p>

<p>@Peter i think/hope/expect people wait for the embargo to be lifted before discussing any questions…</p>

<p>for frq’s… I haven’t done any but by the skims i’ve done of them i would imagine you could simply break it down into what it wants you to do… Then do it.</p>

<p>I am a cutie rabbit. I like to pat myself on the head with my furry paws.</p>

<p>@NewAccount: Wow that really sucks my methods are usually more efficient (e.g. calling super.method() instead of rewriting that portion of code, and other things)
It doesn’t make sense that the CollegeBoard optimal solution is not always the best solution.</p>