Proficiency Exam

Proficiency Request

Interested in taking the 3 hour proficiency exam? The proficiency exam for Spring 2017 will be held from 1:30-4:30pm on the January 14th, 2017.

Note that just knowing how to program (e.g. CS105 / high school AP) is not sufficient to be proficient in CS125. Read on for what is covered on the exam.

• When/Where/How? Dates and sign-up for the Spring 2017 proficiency exam are now published HERE!. The sign up form is available just before the start of each semester.
• Please bring your ICARD / Drivers license and a writing implement.

Studying for the proficiency

Please see the example exam questions from the course. You will be tested on writing Java (or C++) code and the later concepts of the course:

• Object-Orientated code (creating and using class and instance methods and variables);
• Tail, Forward, Accumulator Recursion;
• Recursion on arrays and Linked Lists;
• Algorithm Analysis of small functions (Big O notation and Order of Growth Analysis)
• Details and running times and memory usage of common sorting methods (QuickSort, Mergesort, Selection, Insertion Sort)

Assuming you can already write OO code, review the questions in midterms 2, 3 and the final: Sample Exams.

You may answer the exam in C++ or Java. No other languages are accepted.

For Java programmers, if you wish, you can assume the existence of a helper class (TextIO or Keyboard) to read a line of text (e.g. TextIO.getln) or integer (TextIO.getlnInt) or double (TextIO.getlnDouble) value. Alternatively, you may use the standard java.util.Scanner class. C++ programmers can assume that the standard iostream libraries are already included use the standard cout and cin objects.