Study Guide

First Midterm Exam: Friday, Oct. 16, 2009

The exam will be in class, and you will have 75 minutes to complete it. It will be closed book, closed notes, and no discussions allowed with class mates during the exam.

Here is a list of topics that you should be able to explain or use in a program. Understanding these topics well will help you do well on the exams.

This is a guide, not a guarantee. I intend for it to help you, but questions on the exam can come from any material we have studied in this class.

  1. the main components of a computer system
  2. internal representation of information in a computer... bits, bytes, words, binary
  3. the fetch/execute cycle
  4. The structure of an HTML document (head, body, etc.) and the location(s) of JavaScript programs within that structure
  5. HTML tags... what are the common ones, what do they do in the browser window

  6. variable declaration... creating storage in your program
  7. assignment... storing values in variables
  8. data types: numeric, string, boolean
  9. constants and flag data values
  10. simple arithmetic on numeric data
  11. for loop
  12. while loop
  13. conditional statements: if, if-then, if-then-else, if-then-else-if, switch
  14. boolean expressions and comparison of data values (less than, greater than, less than or equal, equal, etc.)

  15. input via prompt and confirm
  16. input via form fields
  17. simple output via alert
  18. HTML output via document.write()

  19. function definition
  20. function calls
  21. passing parameters into functions
  22. passing information back from a function with the return statement

  23. variables used as accumulators (with addition, with multipication)
  24. symbolic execution of a program, organizing the variable value changes with memory tables