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Computer Science 12:


Study guides for quizzes and the final exam




Study guide for Quiz 1, to be given February 28, 2010

Beginning on Sunday, February 28, we will have brief (10 to 20 minute) quizzes at the beginning of each lab session. (Please arrive on time or early.) The quizzes will be on paper.

The February 28 quiz will be an on-paper quiz having two parts:

  1. Excel: Given a picture of a portion of an Excel spreadsheet, you will be expected to write appropriate formulas for the specified cells. The formulas will involve some of the functions that have been covered in lab and/or in tutorial material. These may include SUM, COUNT, AVERAGE, MIN, MAX, and the various functions involving dates. They may also include the basic arithmetic operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division). Also you will need to know the difference between absolute and relative addressing of cells (e.g. $A$2 vs. A2). The functions IF, AND, and OR will not yet be covered in Quiz 1, but will be covered in Quiz 2.

    2. To prepare for the quiz, you will need practice using all the above-named functions. To that end, it is recommended that you not only do the homework but also play with examples in the Excel tutorials for all four weeks up to now.

  2. HTML: You will be expected to write out the HTML for a trivially short page which will be described on the quiz. You will be expected to know all the HTML we have covered in class so far. You will be expected to know how to create HTML links using the  a  tag with the  href  attribute, and you will be expected to know how to use the  body ,  p  (paragraph),  head ,  title , and  html  tags. (See the HTML tutorials.)


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Study guide for Quiz 2, to be given March 7, 2010

The March 7 quiz will be an on-paper quiz having two parts:

  1. Excel: Given a picture of a portion of an Excel spreadsheet, you will be expected to write appropriate formulas for the specified cells. The formulas will involve some of the functions that have been covered in lab and/or in tutorial material. These may include SUM, COUNT, AVERAGE, MIN, MAX, and especially IF, AND, and OR. They may also include the basic arithmetic operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division), plus the relational operators, (such as  < ,  > ,  <= , and  >= ),  which we've often seen used within logical expressions. Also you will need to know the difference between absolute and relative addressing of cells (e.g. $A$2 vs. A2).

    2. To prepare for the quiz, you will need practice using all the above-named functions. To that end, it is recommended that you not only do the homework but also play with examples in the Excel tutorials for all four weeks up to now. Make sure, especially, that you get practice with IF functions, including nested IF functions.

  2. HTML: As on the previous quiz, you will be expected to write out the HTML for a trivially short page which will be dscribed on the quiz. You will be expected to know all the HTML we have covered in class so far. You will be expected to know how to create HTML links using the  a  tag with the  href  attribute, and you will be expected to know how to use the  body ,  p  (paragraph),  head ,  title , and  html  tags. (See the HTML tutorials.)


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Study guide for Quiz 3, to be given March 14, 2010

On Sunday, March 14, we will have our usual brief (10 to 20 minute) quiz at the beginning of the lab session. (Please arrive on time or early.) The October 14 quiz will be an on-paper quiz having two parts:

  1. Excel: Similar to last week's Excel quiz problem, but probably more challenging.

    2. To prepare for the quiz, you will need practice using all the functions we've covered so far (listed in the previous study guide). To that end, it is recommended that you not only do the homework but also play with examples in the Excel tutorials for all four weeks up to now. Make sure, especially, that you get practice with IF, AND, and OR functions, including nested IF functions.

  2. HTML: There will be a few multiple choice questions on copyright issues and the proper use of free downloadable graphics. (See Copyright issues and policies of "free" graphics download sites.)


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Study guide for Quiz 4, to be given March 28, 2010

The March 28 quiz will be an on-paper quiz, mostly about Excel formulas involving the functions that have been covered in lab and/or in tutorial material. These include SUM, COUNT, AVERAGE, MIN, MAX, IF, AND, OR, COUNTIF, SUMIF, and AVERAGEIF, and also the basic arithmetic operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division), plus the date functions. Given an on-paper picture of an Excel spreadsheet, you will be expected to be able to write appropriate formulas for specified cells.

There will also be some multiple-choice questions. Likely topics covered include CSS, the differences between HTML 3 and HTML 4, and the XHTML standard, as discussed in the HTML tutorials for this week and the previous week.

To prepare for the quiz, the main thing you will need is practice using all the above-named Excel functions. To that end, it is recommended that you not only do the homework but also play with examples in the tutorials. Make sure, especially, that you are comfortable with COUNTIF, SUMIF, and AVERAGEIF, and also with nested IF functions and logical expressions involving AND and OR.


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Study guide for Quiz 5, to be given April 18, 2010

The April 18 quiz will be an on-paper quiz, mostly about Excel formulas involving the functions that were covered in lab this week, i.e. the SMALL, LARGE, PMT, PV, and FV functions. It may also involve other functions we've covered in the past, including the SUM, COUNT, AVERAGE, MIN, MAX, IF, AND, OR, COUNTIF, SUMIF, and AVERAGEIF, and also the basic arithmetic operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division), plus the date functions. Given an on-paper picture of an Excel spreadsheet, you will be expected to be able to write appropriate formulas for specified cells.

There will also be some fill-in-the-blanks and/or multiple-choice questions involving HTML.

Likely HTML topics include CSS, the differences between HTML 3 and HTML 4, and the XHTML standard, as discussed in the HTML tutorials for this week and the previous two weeks. Among other things, you should be aware of:

Although you will not be expected to write CSS code, you should be familiar enough with CSS code to be able to recognize the difference between style attributes and various older HTML 3 tags and attributes that were deprecated in HTML 4, and be able to recognize the three different ways of using CSS. Also you should be able to recognize whether a piece of HTML code fits the XHTML standard (e.g. based on its use of closing tags, proper nesting, and style of self-closing tags).

To prepare for the quiz, the main thing you will need is practice using all the above-named Excel functions. To that end, it is recommended that you not only do the homework but also play with examples in the tutorials. Make sure, especially, that you are comfortable with COUNTIF, SUMIF, and AVERAGEIF, and also with nested IF functions and logical expressions involving AND and OR.

You should also study your class notes and the tutorials on both HTML and the database concepts we are introducing this week.


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Study guide for Quiz 6, to be given May 2, 2010

The May 2 quiz will be an on-paper quiz.

The April 18 quiz will be an on-paper quiz.

The emphasis will be on Excel, mainly (1) COUNTIF, SUMIF, and AVERAGEIF; and (2) the SMALL, LARGE, PMT, PV, and FV functions. It may also involve other functions we've covered in the past, including the SUM, COUNT, AVERAGE, MIN, MAX, IF, AND, OR, and also the basic arithmetic operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division), plus the date functions. Given an on-paper picture of an Excel spreadsheet, you will be expected to be able to write appropriate formulas for specified cells.

There will be some fill-in-the-blanks questions, and possibly some multiple-choice questions, on database terminology. Any of the basic database concepts covered in class will be fair game. Know the meaning of the following terms, in the context of databases: "table," "record" (a.k.a. "tuple"), "field" (a.k.a. "attribute"), "key," "foreign key," "referential integrity," "query," "form," and "report."


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Study guide for Quiz 7, to be given May 9, 2010

The May 9 quiz will be an on-paper quiz.

There will be more fill-in-the-blanks questions, and possibly some multiple-choice questions, on database terminology. Again, know the meaning of the following terms, in the context of databases: "table," "record," "tuple," "field," "attribute," "key," "foreign key," "referential integrity," "query," "form," and "report."

There will also be some questions about Goal Seek and how it could be used with various Excel functions we've covered so far, including the LARGE and SMALL function and the PMT, PV, and FV functions. You might first be given a picture of a spreadsheet and asked to write a formula appropriate to some problem, along with fill-in-the-blanks and/or multiple-choice questions about how Goal Seek could then be used with that formula. To be prepared for these questions, you must practice using Goal Seek with a variety of Excel functions.

There will be more multiple-choice and/or fill-in-the-blanks questions on all the same HTML topics mentioned in previouw quiz study guides, plus the additional topic of RGB colors. Know how the colors white, black, brightest red, brightest green, brightest blue, and brightest yellow are represented using hexadecimal notation.


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Study guide for Quiz 8, to be given May 16, 2010

The May 16 quiz will be an on-paper quiz.

There will probably be some questions about Excel's VLookup function. The questions may include fill-in-the-blanks and/or multiple choice questions and/or a problem in which you are given a picture of a spreadsheet and asked to write an appropriate formula to go into some specified cell.

There will probably be some fill-in-the-blanks and/or multiple-choice about HTML and CSS and the differences amongst HTML 3, HTML 4, and XHTML.

There will probably be a spreadsheed problem involving one or more of the previously-covered Excel functions, including PMT, FV, PV, SUM, COUNT, AVERAGE, MIN, MAX, and especially IF, AND, OR, COUNTIF, SUMIF, and AVERAGEIF.


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Study guide for final exam, to be given May 23, 2010

The final exam will be given on Sunday, December 13, at 1:00 PM, in B-131.

The final exam will be similar to the quizzes, only longer. It will cover all the material covered on all the quizzes, plus mail merge.

Regarding mail merge, there will probably be a few fill-in-the-blanks and/or multiple-choice questions on matters you should be familiar with if you've used mail merge a few times.

At least 90 percent of the final exam will be on matters already covered on previous quizzes. To prepare, review everything you were asked to review in all the previous study guides.


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D. Nixon: CS 12 > Quizzes & Exam