I learnt many valuable skills while taking this College Board Practice MC Exam, including:

  • Time management during the test (to not get stuck on any problem for too long)
  • Analysis of logical proceedings as written in pseudocode or data tables

On this MC, I earned a 59/66. My analytics are as follows:

After viewing my score, I checked the topic breakdowns to determine which big ideas I need to work on the most. My mistakes ranged over many of the big ideas, proving I am not significantly lacking in any one topic (I instead need to work on improving my overall test-taking strategies such as reading the question and slowing down).

Finally, my topic breakdown includes which topics I need to work on the most. Based on the listings below, I need to work on data compression and digital divide the most (though each section only had one question so I am not too concerned).

Mistakes and Corrections

Question 15

Q: Which of the following best compares the values displayed by programs A and B?

Selected: Program B displays one more value than program A.

Correct: Program A and program B display identical values in the same order.

I got confused by the less than or equal to sign, and didn’t see the 0 at the top of program B.

Learning: Pay close attention to diagrams, don’t rush

Question 16

Q: A student wrote the following program to remove all occurrences of the strings "the" and "a" from the list wordList. While debugging the program, the student realizes that the loop never terminates. Which of the following changes can be made so that the program works as intended?

The researchers noticed that the total number of registered users appears to be increasing at about a constant rate. If this pattern continues, which of the following best approximates the total number of registered users, in millions, in year 12 (two years after the last entry in the table) ?

Selected: 30.6

Correct: 31.2

I didn’t understand the concept of indexing. I researched it further, and now it is clear.

Question 23

Q: A flowchart is a way to visually represent an algorithm. The flowchart below is used by an application to set the Boolean variable available to true under certain conditions. The flowchart uses the Boolean variable weekday and the integer variable miles. Which of the following statements is equivalent to the algorithm in the flowchart?

Selected: available weekday OR miles < 20 Correct: available weekday AND miles < 20

I understood that the miles had to be less than 20 but did not clearly identify the logical operator that needed to be used.

Question 29

Q: A person wants to transmit an audio file from a device to a second device. Which of the following scenarios best demonstrates the use of lossless compression of the original file?

Selected: A device compresses the audio file by removing details that are not easily perceived by the human ear. The compressed file is transmitted to a second device, which plays it.

Correct: A device compresses the audio file before transmitting it to a second device. The second device restores the compressed file to its original version before playing it.

I was not familiar with audio compression and thought that compression meant transformation to a form that is not in the same file type.

Question 45

Q: Consider a game in which a player flips a fair coin three times. If all three coin flips have the same result (either all heads or all tails) the player wins. Otherwise, the player loses. Which of the following code segments best simulates the behavior of the game?

Selected: C

Correct: D

I need to practice reading block diagrams for code in order to familiarize myself with new forms of logic structures.

Question 50-52

I was not locked in. I need to ensure that in the AP exam, I take mental breaks so that I don’t zone out.

Question 54

Q: Assume that the list originalList contains integer values and that the list newList is initially empty. The following code segment is intended to copy all even numbers from originalList to newList so that the numbers in newList appear in the same relative order as in originalList. The code segment may or may not work as intended. Which of the following changes, if any, can be made so that the code segment works as intended?

Selected: No change is needed; the code segment is correct as is.

Correct: Changing line 5 to APPEND (newList, number)

Insert is not the same function as append.

Question 60

Q: Consider two lists of numbers called list1 and list2. A programmer wants to determine how many different values appear in both lists. For example, if list1 contains [10, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60] and list2 contains [20, 20, 40, 60, 80], then there are three different values that appear in both lists (20, 40, and 60). The programmer has the following procedures available. Which of the following can be used to assign the intended value to count?

Selected: newList1 RemoveAllDups (list1) newList2 RemoveAllDups (list2) bothList Combine (newList1, newList2) count LENGTH (newList1) + LENGTH (newList2) - LENGTH (bothList) Correct: newList1 RemoveAllDups (list1) newList2 RemoveAllDups (list2) bothList Combine (newList1, newList2) uniqueList RemoveAllDups (bothList) count LENGTH (bothList) - LENGTH (uniqueList)

I need to organize my thoughts into a more cohesive, structured format instead of trying to apply logic in my head. (I must work through the problem on paper, rather than mentally.)

Question 61

Q: Which of the following actions are likely to be helpful in reducing the digital divide?

Selected: Designing new technologies to be accessible to individuals with different physical abilities Correct: Designing new technologies to be accessible to individuals with different physical abilities AND Having world governments support the construction of network infrastructure

READ THE QUESTION (Select 2 answers, not 1).