APCS: AP Computer Science A @sfhs

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The first quarter exam will be in two parts: Free Response on Monday October 12, 2026 (45 min, curved to 100 points for the top score), and Multiple Choice/Short Answer on Tuesday October 13 (45 min, curved to 100 points for the top score). Quarter exams are worth 20% of your grade. The exam will be similar to the quizzes and tests that we have had. The Free Response questions in the first quarter are simpler than AP questions, as we have only have studied Units 1 and Two of the AP CED(Course Exam Description). Some questions will show you segments of code, and you will be asked about what might be printed, or the valu of a variable after the code is executed. You might be shown a method, and be asked how to call that method properly, or what it might print or return given certain parameters. The Multiple choice section might also include short answer questions, like what a string method might return (like “abcd”.indexOf(“c”)), or evaluate a boolean expression, or how often a loop might iterate.

The first Free Response Question question will ask you to write a method (much like a codingbat.com warmup exercise), and the second question will ask you to complete a class bu writing some methods.

The first quarter exam is a cumulative exam that covers

The summer assignment
Turtle Graphics
Classroom labs (including mathorama wiki, Litvin, and Runestone exercises)
AP Classroom (Class 7 Sampler, Videos, Qtr 1 MC Practice, Qtr 1 FRQ Practice)
Chapters 3 through 5 of the Litvin textbook (Homework, Labs, Chapter Tests). If it has been a quile, you may wish to re-read as least the paragraphs in bold. I hope you find that Chapter 3 makes a lot more sense after Chapter 5!

Links to Practice Problems

Qtr 1 MC and FRQ Practice assignment at AP Classroom
codingbat.com Warm-up 1
codingbat.com Logic 1
Writing classes Practice
[]albert.io
Old Practice FRQs' for Qtr 1

Things to watch out for:

Constructors should initialize the class's fields (fields are private, to encapsulate)
When initialzing fields in a constructor, Do not mention its type- this accidentally makes a local variable instead of initializing the classes field that has the same name.
Remember to make fields private and methods public,
Remember local variables are never public nor private
Remember method names should use () for the parameter list, even if there are no parameters
Watch for dangling else statements (p 148) - without brackets, the last else belongs to the previous if
Do not add a System.out.print when no printing is requested (This can be a 1 or 2 point Extraneous code that causes side effect penalty on the AP Exam)
Do not use local variables before first declaring them ( also a AP scoring penalty).
Variables are declared ONLY ONCE, not every time.
Do not assign a value to a parameter inside a method unless you are asked to (also a AP scoring penalty called Destruction of data)
Never use return in a constructor
Remember to return something of the same type as a method's header.
Do not return something when writing a void method ( a method that isn't supposed to return something (This too has a AP scoring penalty)

Finally, please remember to get a good night's rest and a healthy breakfast! Good Luck!