The first exam is Monday, April 21. It will be closed-book, closed-notes. It is worth 75 points, or 15% of your course grade. You will have the entire class period to take the exam. The exam will be a combination of multiple choice, matching and short answer questions.

Note: I hand out two versions of the exam. They differ only in the order of questions. The students on your left and right will have the other version.

Resources

• A complete set of lecture notes, including for the video, is available on the course web site at
  http://faculty.otterbein.edu/PSanderson/CSC100/schedule.html. We did not cover every single topic, but you should start by reviewing these. Almost all exam topics are drawn from the notes.
• Read the textbook. Shocking concept, but it works! Read the posted lecture notes for a chapter first, then re-read/review that chapter. There are topics in the book we did not cover in class, and there will be few if any questions over those.
• Questions at the end of each chapter: True or False, Multiple Choice, and Review Questions. Work through these questions. You will see questions like them on the exam, except that I do not give true/false questions.

Topics

Here are the topics you should know for the first exam.  This guide is not intended to be comprehensive, however, so don't scream at me if I ask a question not specifically covered here!

Chapter 1 - Introduction

• the purpose of computers and what they do, in general terms
• what distinguishes the generations of computers (e.g. tubes, transistors, ICs)
• how data and information and instructions are represented in a computer

Video - Giant Brains

• computer origins and history from Jacquard looms to Babbage to ENIAC to today

• how to count using binary numbers
• what kinds of things are stored in binary (everything!)
• components of a computer, their acronyms, and what they do
• selected components of the CPU and what they do
• the instruction cycle
• units of measure such as bits, bytes, hertz, kilo-, mega-, giga-
• difference between core and peripheral components
• some basics of how digital cameras work
• characteristics of various storage devices: RAM, disk, CD/DVD, tape

• what the stored program concept is (program is stored in memory with data)
• the distinctions between application, system, and translation software, with examples
• textual (DOS) versus graphical (Mac, Windows) styles of operating systems
• the basic duties of an operating system

• what a spreadsheet is
• spreadsheet terminology (worksheet, cell, row, column, etc)
• what cells can contain (values, labels, formulas)
• what formulas are and what causes them to be recalculated
• how to reference a different cell or a range of cells
• how to reference a different worksheet
• what happens to cell references when copied formula is pasted

Study hard and good luck!