BCS1110-10 Exam Prep

• Lecture notes
  • Lecture 1 (Introduction)
  • Lecture 2 (Hardware)
  • Lecture 3 & 4
  • Lecture 5
  • Lecture 6
  • Lecture 7
  • Lecture 8
  • Lecture 9
  • Demo exam paper
• Key takeaways
• Lecture slides

Lecture notes

Lecture 1 (Introduction)

BCS1110-1 Intro lecture

• Is computer science a science? Engineering? Why?
• Read Required Reading → Why social aspects matter in computer science problems
• HTML example of creativity and logic intertwined in computer science
• Standardization & Non-Standardization → e.g. standardized protocols, or mishaps with non-Standardization
• Steps of computational thinking, abstraction, problem solving, decomposition
  • Level of abstractions (e.g. tutorial sheet question about a penguin)
  • Applying decomposition to a problem

Lecture 2 (Hardware)

BCS1110-2 Computer Hardware

• Building blocks of computing → (logic gates)
• Transistors are made of basic gates (AND, OR, NOT)
• Combinational Circuits (and designing them from boolean expressions)
  • e.g. Exclusive OR (XOR) → Level of complexity
• Abstraction in Hardware
• Converting units (e.g. binary and decimal) from and to another → won’t need a calculator
  • Required reading on storage units
• ALU, opcodes, status → Don’t memorize opcodes
• Structure of CPU, Instruction Sets, Moore’s Law (number of transistors on computer doubles every 2 years)
  • Control Unit, ALU, Registers, RAM
  • Questions similar to tutorial sheet (calculate size of a hardware x years back in time applying Moore’s Law)

Lecture 3 & 4

BCS1110-3 Algorithms and Command Line & BCS1110-4 Command Line and Git

• Read through Tom’s lecture slide
• Ignore historical facts
• Don’t memorize command line, but understand what basic ones do
• No git commands required in the exam → but maybe need to explain what a git command does

Lecture 5

Exam material

Everything in lecture slides of Week 3 is required for the exam

BCS1110-5 Theory of Computation

• Formal theory of computation
  • Why do we need it?
• Definitions of String, Language, Relationship, Alphabet, Character
• Finite Automata, design and recognition
  • Know how to design an automata → few questions about this, look at tutorial sheets
• Deterministic Finite Automata

Lecture 6

BCS1110-5 Theory of Computation

• Design tabular automata out of a DFA (table of transitions and states)
• Design a automata from a language and then a tabular DFA from it
• Decipher existing DFA and design tabular DFA or language
• Regular language and Compliment of Regular Language (and relationship)
  • Can you design a DFA for a regular language?
  • Can you design a DFA for a complement of a regular language?
• Design NFA → BUT you can design a DFA instead
  • You cannot design a NFA is a DFA is required!
  • When does an NFA accept, what are Epsilon transitions

Lecture 7

Exam materials

You can ignore everything in Part 3 of the slides (71-83) But everything in part 4 is important (slides 85-90

BCS1110-7 Computer Networks

• Definitions of network, Shannon’s model, DNS, DNS Spoofing
• Network topologies (point to point, star, mesh, bus)
• What the internet is, how it started (university network)
• Different types of IP addresses (e.g. static, dynamic, private, public)
• Client-Server model, recognize them and explain why they are (or not) client-server models
• TCP/IP protocol and layers and protocols within each layer
  • HTTP, SMTP
  • TCP protocol
  • What protocols are in the transport layer, why do we need such layer?

Lecture 8

BCS1110-8 Practical Network Applications

• Go through lecture notes and look for the theory

Lecture 9

BCS1110-9 Information Security and Privacy

• Importance of security in computing and networks
• Encryption
  • Difference between encryption and decryption
  • Symmetric vs Asymmetric encryption
  • Applications
• Misconceptions vs. Reality (don’t memorize)
  • End-to-end encryption, password managers
  • Recognize if a practice implemented by a website is good or not and explain
• Passwords
  • Hashing, Multi-factor Auth, password Attacks and prevention
  • Phishing and Dictionary Attacks
• Social engineering (look at Tom’s slides)

Demo exam paper

• 25 questions → multiple choice or open ended
• 2 hours to solve everything, some questions are harder or easier
• Properly motivate answers
• Name a type of algorithm that is not a program → “Baking a cake”
• Designing flowcharts (Tutorial sheet week 2)
• Explain the concept of closure properties of regular languages →
  • Regular languages are ==closed under complements== (Complement of a Regular Language is still a Regular Language)
  • The constraints and the space of the problem is still the same
• When designing DFAs think about Edge Cases
• JavaCraft Project
  • Review project javacraft functions for exam (more abstract in the actual exam)
  • ==Review JavaCraft Project FSA Submission==
  • Review newly implemented blocks (Diamond, TNT, Iron Sword)

Key takeaways

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Lecture slides