Week 6
Additional Practice

Practice Materials

Explaining this section

Each week, I will provide you with various activities to practice what you’ve learned. These activities typically include Parsons Problems, Debugging Problems, (Paired) Programming Practice, and links to additional resources from your textbook.

At the end of this section, you’ll find “Code Walkthroughs” — either videos or code that explain the prior problems. You can use these materials as you work through the tasks to help resolve any lingering issues before moving on to the next section.

Please note that the materials in this section are not graded. While I can see your progress on the textbook materials and (Paired) Programming Practice, this information is not considered when assigning grades.

 

Parsons Problems

You have encountered Parsons Problems in your textbook, such as Activity 2.10.6 on Runestone Academy. These problems present the complete code for a program, but in a mixed-up order, sometimes including extra, distracting code. Your task is to arrange the pieces correctly to "write" the described program. These problems are a great first step in learning because they allow you to focus on the semantics of programming rather than the syntax.

This week, we will use some Parsons Problems that come as part of your textbook.

 

  • Go to : 2.16. Mixed-up Code Questions
  • Before you start, make sure that the drop down box at the top of each problem is set for Parsons Problems like:
  • I suggest you complete
    • problems 3, 4, 5, and 7.
  • You may absolutely practice with the other ones as well, although I think some of those are a little strange or difficulty at this point in the course.

 

"Solutions" for these four examples are included in the Code Walkthrough section below.

 

 

Additional Textbook Activities

Some students are always asking for more practice. I get it. Practice is helpful. The following problems are entirely optional but are provided here to give you some additional practice if you are interested. They are similar to what would be on a competency demo.

  • 2.15. Multiple Choice Questions
    • The Multiple-Choice questions are probably the most like the kind of questions you will see on the next competency demo.
  • 2.16. Mixed-up Code Questions
    • You might say, "wait" we did these above as Parsons Problems. That's true, but you can actually switch these from Parsons Problems to full blown practice problems where you write the code starting with a blank window. This is called Active Write mode.
    • You change the mode to Active Write by selecting that option from the drop-down menu
    • Then you click on the "Select This Problem" button from the preview window
    • Now you can write the program starting from nothing.

 

Code Walkthroughs

The following are videos and code solutions explaining the problems above, including the Parsons Problems, Debugging Problems, and (Paired) Programming Activity. You SHOULD NOT view these until you have either solved the activities yourself and want to see how I would do it, or you have tried at least twice and are still stumped.

Don’t jump to the "correct answer" too quickly. It’s beneficial to struggle with a problem for a day or two. We improve when we meet and overcome resistance. Learning comes from practice, so make sure to TRY before jumping to the solutions.