Greetings, did anyone here take the AP Comp Science AB exam? if so, what are your thoughts?

Heheheh, nope . But I will be taking it next year

If you code it, they will come...

Commander M
http://commanderm.8m.com
cmndrm@commanderm.8m.com

I heard you have to explain what happens if you do this or that to code. Also, you must use the supplied AP classes for matrices, vectors, and lists.

Well, I haven''t taken the AP test, but I did take the High-Level International Baccalaureate CS test...I''m not sure how similar they are, but here''s some of the stuff that was on mine:

The test was divided up into two "themes", one related to computer engineering stuff (much to my dismay, nobody told us this and we were not prepared for it as a result) and one related to programming/CS stuff. All of our code had to be written in some IBO-approved pseudocode format; I think that AP has something similar but I''m not sure. The computer engineering part was a pain. There was a problem where we were given a diagram of a circut and a string of input bits, and then asked to compute the checksum of those input bits. There were other problems similar to that. The programming sections had problems dealing with computational geometry, file storage and compression, and data structures including linked lists, stacks, queues, trees, etc. For some problems we has to trace through some pseudocode that we were given, for others we had to implement parts of the various data structures or show how they could be used to solve certain problems.

Hope that helps some,

-Liquid

I took the AP computer science test about a year ago. I though the test was easy. If you know the basics of programming you should get by.
There was some large number case study on the test that I had never learned because I didn't actually take the class. But at the end of each question, it told you exactly how to answer it in pseudocode.
Don't worry about the exam. -I got a 5

Edited by - LeeIsMe on May 13, 2000 5:42:23 PM

I took both the Pascal Version (1998) and C++ version (1999)


The test is really stupid i think. It basically tests you on the apclasses, and usage. One thing that i would study more than other things, is how, exactly APstring, Apvector,APmatrix,Apstack,and APqueue work...its similar to some of the other stuff you may have encountered. Also work on your logic, you have to solve 4-5 problems in only 1.5 hours (it took me 20 minutes )

I got a 5 on both. AP tests are good

I took the A test a week ago and breezed by it. Any I may have missed would be because Im not 100% familiar with their apstring, apvector, apmatrix classes. They gave us the header files for each class though, and was able to piece through it.

The case study played a small role. There were a few questions that required you to know how the private functions worked, but other than that you could just look at the header file and figure it out...

ratman

Haha, in a district of 10,000 high school students, this other guy and I were the only ones to take the test. It''s pretty sad here - the CS curriculum revolves around Visual Basic. Not only that, but only 3 weeks ago they were getting around to if...then statements, and it''s a year long class.

Aye, lots of crap with the AP classes. Trees, some hashing questions, Big O Notation, and the like.
I thought the mutliple choice was.... well, for me it was somewhat difficult ( I don''t do well in multiple choice setups ) the free response was fairly easy.
dunno what I got, though. Won''t know for a few months :/

There actually is an AP Computer Science class? I didn''t know that... I''m going to take CS I + II in my junior/senior year, but I''m not sure about it. If I can that AP CS I would, but there is a AP CS?
Oh well, I''ll just sit through boring CS, I heard that everyone just sleeps through it to get the Computer credit (required for graduation)
Where are you in the US? I would like to know if I can take AP CS.