For Students

PRACTICE PROBLEMS – PAST TESTS

2019

      CFA 2019 Individual Test – Grade 5 & 6 || Answers
      CFA 2019 Individual Test – Grade 7 & 8 || Answers
      CFA 2019 Team Challenge – Grade 5 & 6 || Rubric
      CFA 2019 Team Challenge – Grade 7 & 8 || Rubric

INDIVIDUAL TEST
30 minutes / ~36 questions

The Individual Test will contain questions that test problem solving skills, computer science concepts, and Scratch. Questions will be weighted according to difficulty and points will be awarded for each correct answer, there will be no penalty for wrong answers.

Contestants will be given 30 minutes to complete the individual test. The test will include approximately 36 questions separated into 3 sections of equal length. The first section will show Scratch code and ask questions about how it works, what it does, what is wrong with it, etc. The second section will be on pseudo code, which is code written as if spoken out loud. Example: “if x is less than 5: change x by 1“. You will be asked to read and write pseudo code. The third section will ask for solutions to logic problems. In each section, problems start simple (1-point problems) and gradually increase in difficulty (to 5-point problems.) Participants may answer questions in any order, but we recommend starting with the easy questions in each section before moving on to harder questions that could take more time to answer.

Practice Problems – INDIVIDUAL TEST
–  UK Bebras Computational Thinking Challenge (distributed with permission)

Note: We like this test because the problems “test logic and computational thinking skills.” The answer for each question is provided along with an explanation of how the answer could be obtained plus how the task is related to Computational Thinking.

ORIGINAL DESIGN PROJECT (ODP) CONTEST

Individuals or teams will have the option to participate by registering their projects as part of the registration process. At check-in, these contestants must hand in 6 copies of a single-sided 8.5″ x 11″ flyer describing their project. The contest includes two phases, in Phase I, contestants will present their project to a panel of judges. Projects will be judged on originality, technical merit, good programming practice, presentation, and aesthetic and entertainment appeal. Contestants should be prepared to answer technical questions about their project. In Phase II, the top 4 or 5 contestants will be selected for a final 3-min. presentation in front of all attendees.

TEAM TEST
90 minutes

Teams will be given a well-known game (e.g. Pac-Man, Mario, Space Invaders) and asked to recreate it in Scratch. The description of the game will include a detailed list of its features and teams will receive points for every feature successfully recreated in their game within the time limit.

Sample Problem 1 (TEAM TEST)

Pac-Man is the yellow circle in the picture. The player controls Pac-Man. The object of the game is for Pac-Man to eat all the small ghosts (dots) without dying. If Pac-Man touches a ghost, he loses a life and goes back to his starting position, unless he has no remaining lives, in which case he dies and the player loses.When Pac-Man eats one of the four big dots, all the ghosts turn blue for ten seconds. While a ghost is blue, it can’t hurt Pac-Man. If Pac-Man touches it, it goes back to its starting position.

Pac-Man cannot go through walls. Ghosts move randomly, but also cannot got through walls.

If Pac-Man eats all the ghosts without dying, he continues on to the next level. At each new level, the ghosts move faster and turn blue for a shorter period of time.

Each time Pac-Man eats a ghost, the player’s score goes up by 1. Neither the score nor Pac-Man’s lives are reset at new levels.

Sample Problem 2 (TEAM TEST)

The player controls a fish with the arrow keys. The goal is for a fish to eat other fish without being eaten. The fish can only eat fish that are smaller than he is. The fish can be eaten by fish that are bigger than he is. If two fish are the same size, nothing happens.Each time the fish eats another fish, he gets bigger. Once he is the biggest fish, he wins the game. If he gets eaten, he loses.

Fish of all different sizes appear and move randomly, except for one large fish which follows him.