Re: Do college AP tests require C++ knowledge?

["Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" <nospam@gsg.eds.com>]

The AP test for CS used to include a section on Pascal and they decided
to replace it with a section on C++. It's perverse, but understandable.

For decades the thrust in tests has been to make it easier to grade
them. That often means over reliance on multiple choice questions; in
this case it means testing everyone on the same language instead of
testing for language-independent skills or allowing the student to pick
a language.

Actually, I have more serious problems with the AP tests; they are given
prior to the completion of the school year, and the instructors know
what will be on it. The net result is that course content is distorted
as teachers teach to the test instead of covering all of the appropriate
materila.

Robert S. White wrote:
> 
>   While my 17 year old nephew was visiting last holiday I was made
> to understand that he needed to learn C++ (what version I don't
> know - brand new ISO draft?) in order to succeed in U.S. college
> Advanced Placement tests.  Is this true?  Can't the tests be made
> somewhat language independent and more at a general computer
> science level?  Perhaps Professor Feldman can enlighten us.
> _____________________________________________________________________
> Robert S. White         -- An embedded systems software engineer
> e-mail reply to reverse of: ia us lib cedar-rapids crpl shift2 whiter

-- 

                        Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
                        Senior Software SE

The values in from and reply-to are for the benefit of spammers:
reply to domain eds.com, user msustys1.smetz or to domain gsg.eds.com,
user smetz. Do not reply to spamtrap@library.lspace.org