Computer Science 1300
    Essential Computer Skills

    Review for First Examination

     
      The first examination will cover the following material:  Lauckner and Lintner, Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 7; Windows 95; e-mail; and word processing with Microsoft Word.  The emphasis will be on material from the text.  The rationale behind this emphasis is the following.  We have been working on two related but separate goals:  gaining an understanding of what computers are capable of and how they work; and gaining facility with some important and frequently used software.  Most of the labs emphasize hands-on work with software (i.e. the second of the two goals), and I believe that such projects are the best way to demonstrate that you have effectively learned how to use the software.  So the examinations will mainly cover the other aspect of the course, an understanding of computers, as covered in our text and in some of our class sessions.

      The examination will contain three main sorts of questions.  First, there will be "objective" questions -- true/false, multiple choice, fill in the blank, etc.  These will be taken from the questions in the text at the end of chapters 1, 2, 3, and 7; from the tests for the CBT training material on Windows 95; or will be questions similar ijn format and content to the CBT questions, but concerning e-mail, using Trinity's LAN (local-area network), or Microsoft Word.  Second, there will be short-answer questions that ask you to explain basic ideas in your own words.  Third, there will be essay questions asking you to discuss some aspect of the course in more detail.

      You have all the study materials you need for the "objective" questions, namely the chapter questions and the CBT tests on Word.  Questions of the second kind will be directly related to the key terms listed at the end of our chapters.  (A few examples might be:  Explain the difference between random access memory and sequential access memory; Explain the difference between a numeral and a number; what is the difference between a special-purpose computer and a general-purpose computer?  (Include an example of each); Explain the difference between analog and digital, including examples of each.)

      Essay questions could include such questions as the following:
       

        1.  Discuss the similarities and differences between the ROBOT of chapter 3 and a desktop PC.  Include consideration of issues such as the following:  general purpose vs. special purpose; number of basic commands; how programs are loaded into memory; nature of memory (e.g. consists of on-off units; memory locations have addresses, and contents of a memory location are accessed by including the address of the location as an operand associated with an instruction; size of memory; etc.).

        2.  Same question, only consider the Pencil and Paper computer rather than the ROBOT.

        3.  Explain what the five kinds of information we have discussed are.  Then take any two of these kinds of information, and explain in detail what transformations must occur in order for the computer to manipulate information of these kinds.

        4.  Give a detailed description of the fetch-and-execute cycle, as it applies to the paper-and-pencil computer.

        5.  This course considers general-purpose electronic digital computers.  Carefully explain what this means, considering each term in this description.

       
       
     
      Last update:  September 29, 1998
      Trinity University  |  Curtis Brown  |  CSCI 1300:  Essential Computing Skills