Wyo AP Computer Science Exam Information & Review

This year's exam will be given on Wednesday, May 7, 2003 at 7:30 a.m.

C++ students will be taking the Computer Science A AP Exam.
Data Structures students will be taking the Computer Science AB AP Exam.

Do this Scavenger Hunt Worksheet early in the school year to familiarize yourself with the College Board AP Computer Science Web site . You should also review the actual Free-Reponse sections of the past few exams along with the scoring guidelines at that web site.

Registration:    See your guidance counselor to register for the exam. The cost is $80 per test which should be paid by a check made out to the "Wyomissing Area School District." Please pay by February 16 at 3:00 pm. The CEEB code for the AP exam is 395-410. Students who are not enrolled in the AP course may still take the exam but must see Mrs. Kreps ASAP.

Test Day:    At 7:30 a.m., report promptly to the library classroom. If one student is late, he/she will hold up everyone! Bring a few #2 pencils with good erasers. Do not bring a calculator or scratch paper.

The test is made up of 2 sections.

• Part I Multiple Choice - The multiple-choice section will contain 40 questions over 1 hour 15 minutes. Five to ten of the questions will have something to do with the Marine Biology case study.
  
• Part II Free Response - The free-response section will contain 4 questions, each with 3 or 4 parts (a, b, c, and d) and last for 1 hour 45 minutes. One free-response question will have to do with the Marine Biology case study. See sample free response questions and solutions from previous years on the AP Web site. In Part II of the exam, the AP C++ students will be given the header (.h) files for the apstring, apvector, & apmatrix classes as well as the Marine Bio class header files. Data Structures students will also be given the .h files for apstack and apqueue.

Review the AP C++ subset to be sure that you are familiar with and have reviewed the C++ specific syntax and structures that will be covered on the exam.

Review the AP classes ( apstring, apvector, apmatrix, apstack, and apqueue ) to be sure that you have memorized the available member functions.

You must be familiar with the Marine Bio Case Study. See this page for links associated with Marine Bio. Also, review the AP classes associated with the Marine Bio Case Study. See this appendix for the .h and .cpp files.

See the following topic outlines for specifics that are covered on each exam. (Data Structures students must be familiar with the topics in BOTH outlines.)

• Computer Science A Exam Topic Outline
• Computer Science AB Exam Topic Outline

Things to watch out for on both exams:

• Write your answers correctly. Only use a cout when you are specifically asked to print something out.
• Be sure to return values from functions when specifically asked to do so.
• Make sure that you function parameters are correct.
• cout and cin are rarely called for in answers on the AP exam.
• Avoid being off-by-one (OBOB) with loops, arrays, etc. (0, 1, n, n-1, etc.)
• Do not use constants from examples. That is, do not hardwire an algorithm with a value that is just used in the directions as an example.
• Make sure that you do use the exact variable and function names as specified in the specs of a problem.
• Be sure to call functions properly.
• When answering an AP question always ask yourself, "What algorithm or what purpose does the test-maker have in mind for this question?"
• The exam-graders are looking at your free-response answers to be "good first drafts" of code. You can miss a semicolon or two but make sure that the "important" syntax is correct and precise.
  

Advice & reflections from former AP students:

• There were a couple of multiple-choice questions on assertions.
• Be able to use structs from external files like classes. That is, know the involved syntax.
• About 30 out of 40 multiple-choice questions involved fair amount of deskchecking. Not as complicated as CML questions though.
• There was one multiple-choice question on the rationale behind the 1999 case study (BigInt).
• Studying the case study made it easier to answer the related free-response question. That is, it helped you save time.
• For the 1 free-response question that involved the case study, they gave you the pseudocode but expected you to know the syntax involved.
• In one of the free-response questions there was some math involving proportions.
• Have tissues in case your nose is runny.
• For the A exam, a few multiple-choice questions mentioned the selection, insertion, & merge sorts. It is necessary to understand those algorithms to be sure of your answers for these questions.
• Only a couple of multiple-choice questions involved deskchecking recursive algorithms.
• You had to know INT_MAX for one multiple-choice question.