* Re: Do college AP tests require C++ knowledge?
@ 1997-12-10 0:00 tmoran
1997-12-10 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
0 siblings, 1 reply; 12+ messages in thread
From: tmoran @ 1997-12-10 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
>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.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread
* Re: Do college AP tests require C++ knowledge? 1997-12-10 0:00 Do college AP tests require C++ knowledge? tmoran @ 1997-12-10 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 0 siblings, 0 replies; 12+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 1997-12-10 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) << 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! ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread
* Do college AP tests require C++ knowledge? @ 1997-12-02 0:00 Robert S. White 1997-12-02 0:00 ` Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 12+ messages in thread From: Robert S. White @ 1997-12-02 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) 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 ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread
* Re: Do college AP tests require C++ knowledge? 1997-12-02 0:00 Robert S. White @ 1997-12-02 0:00 ` Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz 1997-12-02 0:00 ` Tim Ottinger 1997-12-03 0:00 ` Jeremy Beal 1997-12-03 0:00 ` m0nik3r 2 siblings, 1 reply; 12+ messages in thread From: Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz @ 1997-12-02 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) 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 ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread
* Re: Do college AP tests require C++ knowledge? 1997-12-02 0:00 ` Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz @ 1997-12-02 0:00 ` Tim Ottinger 1997-12-03 0:00 ` Scott P. Duncan 0 siblings, 1 reply; 12+ messages in thread From: Tim Ottinger @ 1997-12-02 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) > 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 ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread
* Re: Do college AP tests require C++ knowledge? 1997-12-02 0:00 ` Tim Ottinger @ 1997-12-03 0:00 ` Scott P. Duncan 0 siblings, 0 replies; 12+ messages in thread From: Scott P. Duncan @ 1997-12-03 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) 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.] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread
* Re: Do college AP tests require C++ knowledge? 1997-12-02 0:00 Robert S. White 1997-12-02 0:00 ` Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz @ 1997-12-03 0:00 ` Jeremy Beal 1997-12-03 0:00 ` m0nik3r 2 siblings, 0 replies; 12+ messages in thread From: Jeremy Beal @ 1997-12-03 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) 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) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread
* Re: Do college AP tests require C++ knowledge? 1997-12-02 0:00 Robert S. White 1997-12-02 0:00 ` Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz 1997-12-03 0:00 ` Jeremy Beal @ 1997-12-03 0:00 ` m0nik3r 1997-12-07 0:00 ` Charles Lin 2 siblings, 1 reply; 12+ messages in thread From: m0nik3r @ 1997-12-03 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) To: whiterNOSPAM 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 ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread
* Re: Do college AP tests require C++ knowledge? 1997-12-03 0:00 ` m0nik3r @ 1997-12-07 0:00 ` Charles Lin 1997-12-09 0:00 ` Stanley R. Allen 0 siblings, 1 reply; 12+ messages in thread From: Charles Lin @ 1997-12-07 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) 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 ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread
* Re: Do college AP tests require C++ knowledge? 1997-12-07 0:00 ` Charles Lin @ 1997-12-09 0:00 ` Stanley R. Allen 1997-12-09 0:00 ` David Weller 0 siblings, 1 reply; 12+ messages in thread From: Stanley R. Allen @ 1997-12-09 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) 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 ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread
* Re: Do college AP tests require C++ knowledge? 1997-12-09 0:00 ` Stanley R. Allen @ 1997-12-09 0:00 ` David Weller 1997-12-10 0:00 ` Richard Pattis 0 siblings, 1 reply; 12+ messages in thread From: David Weller @ 1997-12-09 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) 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) -- ****** NEW!! DoD Ada Hotline Number: 1-800-PARIAH ****** Tired of "junk" e-mail? Write to your congressman and tell them you support H.R. 1748, "The Netizens Protection Act of 1997". Make those SPAM-roaches run! http://www.cauce.org TAKE BACK THE INTERNET! ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread
* Re: Do college AP tests require C++ knowledge? 1997-12-09 0:00 ` David Weller @ 1997-12-10 0:00 ` Richard Pattis 0 siblings, 0 replies; 12+ messages in thread From: Richard Pattis @ 1997-12-10 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) >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. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~1997-12-10 0:00 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 12+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 1997-12-10 0:00 Do college AP tests require C++ knowledge? tmoran 1997-12-10 0:00 ` Robert Dewar -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below -- 1997-12-02 0:00 Robert S. White 1997-12-02 0:00 ` Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz 1997-12-02 0:00 ` Tim Ottinger 1997-12-03 0:00 ` Scott P. Duncan 1997-12-03 0:00 ` Jeremy Beal 1997-12-03 0:00 ` m0nik3r 1997-12-07 0:00 ` Charles Lin 1997-12-09 0:00 ` Stanley R. Allen 1997-12-09 0:00 ` David Weller 1997-12-10 0:00 ` Richard Pattis
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