Structure of quizzes and programs in CS 9F

Structure of quizzes and programs in CS 9F

The following table outlines the relationship between quizzes and programs. There are four quizzes you must take and five sets of programs you must write. All the material for a particular group must be completed before material in the next group; however, quizzes and programs within a group may be done in any order.

group

programs

quizzes

a

Orientation

Simple looping and testing

Flow-of-control project

Fundamentals

b

Vector and i/o stream exercises

Vectors and i/o streams

c

List structure exercises

Class design exercises

Dynamically allocated data

Class design

Note that this breakdown is different from what's required to satisfy course deadlines. For information about deadlines, consult the "Information and Regulations" document.

Quizzes focus on C++ details, while the programming assignments provide a context that pulls the details together. In most of our other self-paced programming courses, whether a student should complete a program before or after the corresponding quiz depends on his or her personal learning style; some students learn better "bottom-up" by familiarizing themselves with details before going on to apply them, while others benefit from the "big picture" provided by the programming assignment. C++, however, is a very large language, and we don't come close to covering it all in CS 9F. Someone trying to learn all the details of a given segment before trying to use them will, we think, waste a lot of time. We therefore suggest that in each segment you start by working on the programming assignment(s). Once you make sufficient progress on the programs, move on to studying for the quiz.

group	programs	quizzes
a	Orientation Simple looping and testing Flow-of-control project	Fundamentals
b	Vector and i/o stream exercises	Vectors and i/o streams
c	List structure exercises Class design exercises	Dynamically allocated data Class design