Top 5 Advice regarding ISC Computer Practical

This article consists of few of the basic things which you need to take into consideration while preparing for your ISC Computer Science Practicals.

To begin with I would like to inform you all that you don’t need to practice Inheritance or Recursion programs as you won’t get programs in your practical examination related to these concepts.

You may use the concept of recursion in solving practical programs, but it will be upto you to do so. There won’t be specifically mentioned that you have to do so.

The paper will consist of 3 questions out of which you have to do any one. You will be allotted 3 hours in all which will be divided into:

• Planning session (where you write the programs in the answer sheet) - Maximum 90 minutes
• Writing session (where you write and run the program on the computer) - Maximum 90 minutes

1) How to prepare:

Just after you finish reading this advice, open up your computer and start typing in the programs you know. Try and run every program you know and see what are the common errors which you encounter. Try and be perfect with regards to those errors.

The more you practice programs on the computer, the better you will do in your practical examination. So don’t be lazy. There is no other alternative.

2) Types of programs to practice:

(Given in order of the importance to be given while practicing, Examples are just to make you understand the type of question)

• 2-D array programs

Examples:

1. Magic Matrix
2. Spiral (Circular) Matrix
3. Matrix Multiplication
4. Mirror Image
5. Finding maximum and minimum element
6. Sorting
7. Searching
8. Filling a 2-D array with any give type of numbers. (Example: Fill a n*n matrix with n*n Fibonacci numbers)
9. Operations on Diagonals of a 2-D array
10. Operations on Border elements of a 2-D array
11. Operations on every row or column (Example: Swapping rows or columns or finding maximum and minimum of every row)

• String programs which involve the use of String Tokenizer or split() concepts

Examples: Input a sentence and

1. convert each of its word into piglatin
2. find the reverse of every word
3. replace any given word with another
4. frequency of every word
5. find words which are palindrome
6. find words which begin and end with vowels
7. encode or decode words in circular fashion
8. sorting the words alphabetically

How to solve?

Create a function which does the required operation with one word, then in the main() method, break the sentence into words, and send them to this function one by one to get your final result.

See: http://www.guideforschool.com/358-isc-2013-question-3-practical-paper-solved/ and http://www.guideforschool.com/1266790-program-to-replace-words-of-a-sentence-in-special-fashion/

• Range questions

(Example: Print all the Disarium numbers within 'p' and 'q' along with their frequency)

Similarly, any named number could be given and you will be told to print those numbers and their frequency within a given range.

Note: Don’t forget to check for valid range which are always given in the question like p

How to solve?

Create a function which checks whether a number is the desired number or not by returning a true or a false. Then in the main() method, write a loop which starts from the lower range and goes on till the upper range. Then one by one send the numbers to the function you created. If you get a true from there, then increase the frequency and print the number.

See: http://www.guideforschool.com/203266-java-program-to-check-for-unique-number/ and http://www.guideforschool.com/212-isc-2012-computer-science-practical-program-1-solved/

• General programs:

Examples:

1. Denominations
2. ISBN number
3. Keith number
4. Smith number
5. Some operations related to time, like printing them in words.

   See: http://www.guideforschool.com/553891-program-to-print-a-given-time-in-words-isc-practical-2003/

6. print the possible consecutive number combinations
7. Number system conversion

• Date related programs

Examples:

1. Validate a given date
2. print the date in dd/mm/yyyy format
3. difference of dates

Note: In every date related programs, do check whether the inputted date are valid or not.

See: http://www.guideforschool.com/category/date-related-programs/

3) What to write apart from programs?

You have to write the program in your answer sheet in the planning session (maximum 90 minutes) along with:

• Algorithm of the program you wrote
• Data Description table
• Comments on the program

Don’t forget to number the question you are attempting.

4) Can I change what I wrote on my answer sheet?

No, you cannot change what you wrote after you have finished your planning session i.e. written your program and you are ready to write and run it on the computer.

While running the program if you find some mistakes in what you wrote or the program you wrote is not running as desired, then don’t panic.

Just correct the code on the computer and try and work on it to make it give the desired output. What matters the most is whether your program is giving the correct output on the computer or not as that output will be checked by the external teacher.

Note: Don’t try to be over smart and write the program in such a way that it gives the correct output only for the sample input given in the question. Teachers are smarter than you.

5) What about viva questions?

This is what terrifies most of the student. But the fact is that it is not as terrifying as it seems to be.

The external teacher will ask you questions related to the program you write and the concepts you used in it. Like if you used a while loop, they may ask you difference between for and while loop etc. Few of the most common questions are:

• What is import java.io.*? (Answer: The line is importing all the classes of java.io package into the current class)

• What is BufferedReader? (Answer: BufferedReader is a class and the line which we write having BufferedReader activates the temporary Buffer memory)

• What is StringTokenizer or Scanner and examples of similar classes (if you used it) (Answer: StringTokenizer or Scanner is a class which splits up any given string into tokens separated by delimiters)

I will try and compile few of the viva questions along with their answers if time permits.

Update: Here are some of the commonly asked viva questions: ISC Computer Science Practical Viva Questions.

So, this is it for now student. Hope this helps. Relax and prepare.