CPTR 124 Fundamentals of Programming Final Exam Study Guide

The material presented in this guide covers the concepts emphasized on the final exam. It is meant to guide students studying and reviewing for the test; it is not guaranteed to be comprehensive. Actual test questions will differ from the examples given here. Students should use this guide in addition to other study activities (like reading the textbook, reviewing completed lab assignments, old quizzes, etc.) Some material here may be updated, so check periodically for changes.

The exam will emphasize Chapters 6–14. Be sure you have the November 19, 2014 draft of the textbook.

Be sure you understand the following concepts:

• Functions: defining, invoking, passing parameters, formal vs. actual parameters, default parameters, local vs. global variables, recursion, docstrings, functions as parameters
• Lists: creating, accessing, traversing, slicing, sorting, searching
• Other Python data structures: tuples, dictionaries
• Objects: creating, using, mutable vs. immutable objects, classes
• Exceptions: handling exceptions

You need not worry about the following concepts for the test:

• Sets, local functions, lambda expressions
• The intricate details of Python's exception handling infrastructure
• Linear vs. binary search
• Class inheritance

The exam consists of the following kinds of problems:

• Code Analysis. You will be given a Python function definition or code fragment and then a series of questions based on that code. The questions will test your understanding of the behavior of the code.

• Programming. You will be given a problem specification, and based on this specification you will be asked to write a Python function to solve the problem. Skeleton code may be provided, or you may have to write all the code from scratch.

  For example, write a Python function named sum used to compute the sum of all the values in a list of integers. For example, the following code fragment

          lst = [3, 1, 5]
          print(sum(list))
  		

  displays 9, since 3 + 1 + 5 = 9.

  Beware! Any problems that states that "the function should do no I/O" means you should not get input from the user nor should you print anything on the screen. This means you must not use the print and input functions within the function.