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

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

[Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz]

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

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

[Tim Ottinger]

> 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.

I always have mixed feelings on this. I designed commercial programmer 
aptitude screening tests for a prior employer, and they were very 
effective in screening out "low-mileage experts" and giving a good view 
of a person's skills. But then copies of the test would sometimes be 
given by an employee to a friend or family member. 

Now, on one hand, that's cheating and is like working to raise your
metrics instead of to do good work. That's bad.

One the other thing, if they had to learn and apply just the stuff
on that test, then they probably knew enough to be pretty good 
employees. It had theory applied via debugging questions. It wasn't
a lame "what is an object", but rather more vile and crafty.

If the test has the right questions, and you learn everything that's
needed to pass the test, then is that a good thing or a bad thing? 
The concern is if you didn't learn everything you need to know, but
just memorized a set of answers. It also places the onus on the 
designers of the test to be very comprehensive. A class that tailors to
a 
shallow or narrowly-defined test could be a disaster, but one that
caters
to a really good test might be fine.

Mixed feelings, as I said.
-- 
+------------------+---------------------+------------------+
| Tim Ottinger     | 1810 Summit Dr      |Design Consulting |
| tottinge@oma.com | Urbana IL 61801     |Training offered: |
| Object Mentor    | Tel: (217) 239-4546 |  OOD             |
| www.oma.com      | Fax: (217) 239-4546 |  C++             |
+------------------+---------------------+------------------+
The important thing is to never stop questioning. - A.Einstein

Do college AP tests require C++ knowledge?

[Robert S. White]

  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

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

[Jeremy Beal]

They used to do the A.P. courses and tests in Pascal. It sounds like they may
have moved on to C++?


Jeremy Beal
Get my e-mail address at www.nvmedia.com/jbeal
(Tired of the damn spam)

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

[m0nik3r]

RW,

The college, is like most, lost in a sea of information.  As is typical,
the people making important decisions about peoples lives are clueless 
8^{

There is exactly *ZERO* ways to test ones Computer Science apptitude
that involve direct knowledge of any particular language!

Suppose Bjourne Stroustrop (C++ Inventor) was given a test in some
language he has never seen!  He will fail miserably - yet he is a
BRILLIANT software engineer!

This is the rough analog of giving a test in portugese to solely English
speaking people and then questioning their understanding of the
underlying philosiphy contained therein!

Pragmatically, of course, if the test is in portugese, the test taker
better know portugese!

I am *NOT* saying don't learn C++ .... if that is the language du jour
(he said with a terribly binary accent!) ....  then one must take the
test in the specific (however inappropriate) language.

The failure is in the system.  On the other hand this makes a great
litmust test; since the failure is *USUALLY* within the system, how does
the student handle inherent failure.

Of course the latter rational is a general fallback used by *MOST*
professors when their course sucks!

Hope this helps, realize it probably doesn't!,

m0nik3r

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

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

[Scott P. Duncan]

Tim Ottinger wrote:
> 
> If the test has the right questions, and you learn everything that's
> needed to pass the test, then is that a good thing or a bad thing?

My college Economics 101 professor gave out a list of questions at the
beginning of the semester (about 100 as I recall) and said that the
final for the course would come from that list.  He would not say
exactly what the questions would be, only that about half of them
would be a part of the test.  He said anyone who felt they could get
the answers to the questions without having to come to class was free
to do so -- hardly anyone ended up doing anything close to that.

> The concern is if you didn't learn everything you need to know, but
> just memorized a set of answers. It also places the onus on the
> designers of the test to be very comprehensive.

The latter is the key issue in testing, doing customer surveys, etc.

> A class that tailors
> to a shallow or narrowly-defined test could be a disaster, but one
> that caters to a really good test might be fine.

If designers of test/survey "instruments" don't do a good job, even
well-run training/education will not show up effectively through the
badly designed test.

It would be fascinating to have an employer send out a list of questions
to potential candidates and say, in effect, "Here's what we expect you
to
be conversant with if you want a job here."  Want ads for programmers,
test specialists, etc. often mention platforms, languages, tools, etc.
that the applicant should know.  But an actual set of concepts, ideas,
etc. would be fascinating.

[It used to be that employment "tests" were problematic because they had
to be certified to show the knowledge on the test had job skill
relevance
and a lot of companies just stayed away from that possible legal pit.  I
was given verbal tests during a few interviews:  impromptu "How would
you
code this" or "What's wrong with this code."  But, as I recall, only
AT&T
had an actual sit-down test.]

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

[Charles Lin]

    You can get some of these answers, I suspect, by just heading
out to the Web page for the AP stuff (probably www.collegeboard.org
or www.ets.org), and they probably have a telephone number as well.
But, yes, I believe the tests are making the transition to C++.

    To address a previous poster's point about testing in a particular
language.   I'm not sure there are any easy ways around that.   Any
test that wants the reader to understand code is going to have to
be written in some language, even if it is pseudo-code.   They can
have the students write code in whatever language they are comfortable
with, but this would make grading a pain.

    The move to C++ underscores a few things happening in industry.
First, that the OO hype of the 80's has worked, and it's worked
primarily through C++, and now Java (though some will argue that
true OO languages are more like Smalltalk and Eiffel, and that
C++/Java are some bastardization of OO).    People seem to believe
that the OO style is the right one, or at least, industry believes
it (as opposed to, say, functional programming, which is perhaps
an academician's answer to a good programming language).

    It's true you can be taught concepts about programming languages
that are mostly independent of a language.   Ideas like assignment
statements, if-then-else, while loops, arrays, functions, pointers,
and even objects.    However, it's made much more clear if the
student can actually write programs in some language, and it makes
it easier for people to communicate if the language is commonly
used, such as C++.   In addition, the C++ exams would presumably
have more emphasis on OO design than a Pascal exam (although the
difference may be a little on OO vs. none).

    The sad part about software is that it is highly dependent
on language and OS, and the language is C++ (or possibly Java),
and the OS is Microsoft.   The reason for the choice of language
and OS has more to do with marketing and what everyone else
is using rather than which language or OS is best.   People won't
program in languages like, say, ML, because no one else is
programming in it, and so few people know the language or
can program well in it, so it's not considered a viable language
for solving real worled problesm, and this really has more to do 
with the popularity of a language vs. how good a job as a language
for solving problems.

    I guess the real issue is what should these tests test.  Part
of it is general programming principles, but in the real world,
that's always just going to be one part.   This will give you
some ability to move from one language to the next, but each
language not only has some syntactic peculiarities that might
make it difficult to learn, but it often has different features
or even a different paradigm.    The kinds of programs people
write in Java are probably going to look somewhat different from
the ones in C++, and that's not just because of the difference
in syntax, but the difference is features of the language.

    I believe that general programming skills only get you so
far in a programming language.   If I had a formula, I would say
that learning a programming language is a combination of knowing
general programming skills (modularity, loops, recursion, pointers,
etc) and then learning the details, strengths, and idioms of a
given programming language.    It's the second part that makes
a person a "power user" or "power programmer" of a language, rather
than someone who is trying to make their Lisp code look like C
since they know C.

--
Charles Lin
clin@cs.umd.edu

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

[Stanley R. Allen]

Charles Lin wrote:
> 
>     You can get some of these answers, I suspect, by just heading
> out to the Web page for the AP stuff (probably www.collegeboard.org
> or www.ets.org), and they probably have a telephone number as well.
> But, yes, I believe the tests are making the transition to C++.
> 

This is a problem.  C is much more of a lingua franca than
C++, like FORTRAN was 20 years ago.  Also, many educators
are seriously opposed to basing the student's education on
C++ and instead prefer Java, Ada 95, or Eiffel.  

-- 
Stanley Allen
mailto:s_allen@hso.link.com

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

[David Weller]

In article <348DBAFF.52BF@hso.link.com>,
Stanley R. Allen <s_allen@hso.link.com> wrote:
>This is a problem.  C is much more of a lingua franca than
>C++, like FORTRAN was 20 years ago.  Also, many educators
>are seriously opposed to basing the student's education on
>C++ and instead prefer Java, Ada 95, or Eiffel.  
>

Of course it's a problem, but that's irrelevant.  ETS heard numerous
arguments against using C++ for the AP test, but ignored every one of
'em.  If I recall correctly, C++ will be used for the AP tests
starting next year.

Heck, it would have been far wiser for ETS to stick with their Pascal
version.  ost high schools are struggling with getting "newer"
computers, and many are still saddled with "old" Apple IIs (or IBM PCs
with 386SX or 286 CPUs).  None of the languages you listed (Ada95,
Eiffel, or Java) are very friendly to the "old" architectures. Then
again, just try to find an ISO-compliant C++ compiler for an Apple II
next year :-)

In the end, it will be noted that ETS gave in to enormous "peer
pressure".  I have no doubt they'll switch to Java within five years
(so they can switch to more economical web-based testing).

(This isn't a slam against C++, by the way, it's just godawful for
teaching to high schoolers)

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

[tmoran]

>Most high schools are struggling with getting "newer"
>computers, and many are still saddled with "old" Apple IIs (or IBM PCs
>with 386SX or 286 CPUs).  None of the languages you listed (Ada95,
  My son graduated in June from what's supposed to be the best private
college prep high school in Santa Clara CA (ie, Silicon Valley).  Their
CS courses were in Pascal using Turbo-Pascal on their DOS 286s.

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

[Robert Dewar]

<<  My son graduated in June from what's supposed to be the best private
college prep high school in Santa Clara CA (ie, Silicon Valley).  Their
CS courses were in Pascal using Turbo-Pascal on their DOS 286s.
>>

But these days, when you can buy a perfectly good 486 machine for $300
(I know, I bought a brand new one for this price 12 months ago), it is
pretty absurd for people to be struggling with 286's. Yes, there may
be all sorts of reasons, but that does not stop it being absurd.

P.S. GNAT will run just fine on a 386SX. You may not be able to use fpt,
if you don't have a coprocessor, but so what, there is absolutely no need
to teach fpt at that level, and indeed there are good arguments for not
doing so!

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

[Richard Pattis]

>Of course it's a problem, but that's irrelevant.  ETS heard numerous
>arguments against using C++ for the AP test, but ignored every one of
>'em.  If I recall correctly, C++ will be used for the AP tests
>starting next year.

While ETS set policy in the early 80s (Pascal vs BASIC was the fight),
it is following policy in the 90s. They asked a boat-load of schools
what language they thought they would be using in CS-1, and C++ came up
tops. ETS has no altruistic motives: it sells its exams as a cost effective
way for students to get college credit. If most the schools do not
accept a course in Pascal (or Ada, or whatever) then students don't take
the exam and ETS doesn't make money.

>Heck, it would have been far wiser for ETS to stick with their Pascal
>version.  ost high schools are struggling with getting "newer"
>computers, and many are still saddled with "old" Apple IIs (or IBM PCs
>with 386SX or 286 CPUs).  None of the languages you listed (Ada95,
>Eiffel, or Java) are very friendly to the "old" architectures. Then
>again, just try to find an ISO-compliant C++ compiler for an Apple II
>next year :-)

Many instructors like the fact that C++ doesn't run Apple IIs: they can
use this fact to argue with administrators to get additional funds to
enhance their labs.

>
>In the end, it will be noted that ETS gave in to enormous "peer
>pressure".  I have no doubt they'll switch to Java within five years
>(so they can switch to more economical web-based testing).

Note that all this occured before Java came on the scene. I could argue
that no AP exam should be based on technology, and programming languages
are technologies -rapidly changing ones at that. If colleges switch to
Java in mass, then the ETS will follow.

Rich Pattis

-When teaching a rapidly changing technology, perspective is much more
 important than content.