AP Exam Study Blog

Beneficial and Harmful Effects of Computing

Beneficial Effects:

  • Communication: Connect with people worldwide through texting, video chatting, and social media.
  • Education: Use of digital tools and platforms for online learning and studying.
  • Healthcare: Virtual doctor visits, health tracking apps, and AI-powered medical tools.
  • Efficiency: Speeds up repetitive tasks like calculations and data processing.

    • Harmful Effects:

  • Job Loss: Automation taking over tasks previously done by humans.
  • Privacy Issues: Collecting user data without clear permission.
  • Mental Health Concerns: Too much screen time and stress from social platforms.
  • Environmental Costs: E-waste and high energy consumption.

    • Digital Divide

  • Definition:The difference between people who can access modern technology and those who can't.

    • Causes:

  • Economic status
  • Geographic location
  • Educational background
  • Age differences

    • Consequences:

  • Unequal access to learning resources.
  • Fewer employment and healthcare opportunities.

    • Possible Solutions:

  • Provide free or low-cost internet and devices.
  • Offer training programs to improve digital skills.

    • Computing Bias

  • Definition: When computer programs or algorithms produce unfair or skewed results due to biased data.

    • Examples:

  • Job applications systems that favor certain names.
  • Facial recognition software that struggles with darker skin tones.

    • Causes

  • Biases in historical datasets.
  • Lack of diversity among tech developers.

    • Solutions:

  • Train algorithms with diverse data sets.
  • Test systems regularly for fairness.
  • Use tools to detect and fix bias.

    • Crowdsourcing

  • Definition: Getting help or data from a large online community to solve problems or gather information.

    • Examples:

  • Wikipedia, Waze, Duolingo, Foldit.

    • Advantages:

  • Quick and low-cost.
  • Brings in many different perspectives.

    • Disadvantages:

  • Results may not always be accurate.
  • Quality control can be difficult.

    • Legal and Ethical Concerns

    Legal Issues:

  • Copyright Violations: Using others’ content without permission.
  • Data Protection Laws: Regulations like GDPR safeguard personal data.
  • Hacking: Gaining unauthorized access is illegal.

    • Ethical Issues:

  • Informed Consent: Users should be told when data is being gathered.
  • Transparency: Tech should work in ways users expect.
  • Social Impact: Consider effects on jobs, privacy, and mental health.

    • Safe Computing

  • Create Strong Passwords: Use long, complex, and unique ones.
  • Enable 2FA: Adds another step to keep your accounts safe.
  • Use Antivirus & Update Software: Protect your system from viruses.
  • Watch for Phishing: Don’t click on sketchy emails or links.
  • Think Before Sharing: Be cautious about what personal info you put online.

    • Binary Search Algorithm

    Purpose:

  • To quickly find an item in a sorted list.

    • Steps:

  • Look at the middle value.
  • If the target is smaller, search the left half.
  • If the target is larger, search the right half.

    • Efficiency:

  • Time complexity: O(log n)
  • Note: Works only if the list is already sorted.

    • Lists and Filtering Algorithms

    Lists:

  • A collection of items in a specific order (e.g., [10, 20, 30]).

    • Filtering:

  • Select items that meet a condition.
  • Example: scores = [92, 85, 70] → filter scores > 80 → [92, 85]

    • Common Uses:

  • Sorting values
  • Searching with specific conditions
  • Removing repeated items

    • Simulation/Games and Random Algorithms

    Simulation:

  • Imitate real-world systems like climate models or disease spread.

    • Games:

  • Add randomness to make gameplay more interesting.

    • Random Algorithms:

  • Example: Monte Carlo simulations use random inputs to estimate outcomes.

    • Big O & Algorithm Efficiency

    Common Big O Types:

  • Big O Description Example Use
  • O(1) Constant time Accessing one list item
  • O(log n) Logarithmic time Binary search
  • O(n) Linear time Looping through a list
  • O(n²) Quadratic time Nested loops (like bubble sort)

    • MCQ Reflection

    mcqq

    Overall Score: 45/70

    1. (D): Phishing is a technique that attempts to trick a user into providing personal information. In this case, the user is tricked by a fraudulent e-mail.

    4. (D): The Internet is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses protocols to connect devices worldwide. The World Wide Web is an information system (of pages, programs, and files) that is accessible over the Internet.

    14. (C) As is, the procedure traverses numberList from left to right and returns true whenever it encounters a value that is less than the preceding value. If it never encounters such a value, false is returned.

    16. (B) A no-rights-reserved Creative Commons license is used when the creator of a published work wants the work to be made freely available to everyone.

    19. (D) A strong password is something that is easy for a user to remember but would be difficult for someone else to guess based on knowledge of that user. Weak passwords can often be guessed based on publicly available information about a user.

    26. (A) The efficiency of a parallel computing solution is limited by the sequential portion of the solution. If each step is dependent on the preceding step, then each step must wait for the previous step to complete before executing. Therefore, the solution is completely sequential and does not benefit from parallel computing.

    32 (A) Public-key encryption is considered a secure way of encoding data to prevent unauthorized access.

    41. (A) Crowdsourcing is the practice of using input or information obtained from a large number of people via the Internet. In this case, input on a player is provided by other players of the game.

    43. (A) Keylogging is the use of a program to record every keystroke made by a computer to gain fraudulent access to passwords and other confidential information.

    50. (A) Symmetric encryption uses a single key for both encryption and decryption of data. Since the key can be used to unlock the data, it should be kept secret.

    53. (A) Step 4 checks every element of the list, incrementing count each time target appears. Step 5 prints true if and only if count appears multiple times in the list.

    55. (C) This code segment assigns the value of the last element of the list to the variable temp, then removes the last element of the list, then inserts temp as the first element of the list.

    63. (A) and (D) When input1 and input2 are both true, the expression (input1 AND input2) is true, so NOT (input1 AND input2) will evaluate to false. In all other cases, (input1 AND input2) will evaluate to false, so NOT (input1 AND input2) will evaluate to true.

    64. (B) and (C) This line should be removed. This statement causes result to be assigned the value "adult", even if it should have been assigned the value "senior citizen".

    70. (A) and (C) This code segment assigns the characters to the left of position n to newStr. The code segment then concatenates newStr with the substring consisting of the characters to the right of position n.

    MCQ Topics I need to focus on

  • Identifying and correcting errors (60%)
  • Extracting information from data (50%)
  • Using programs with data (50%)
  • Strings (0%)
  • Boolean expressions (25%)
  • lists (20%)
    • cboard

    4.1 The internet

    Packet: a small amount of data sent over a network. Each packet includes the source and the destination information.

    Packet switching: the message (file) is broken up into packets and sent in any order. The packets are reassembled by the recipient’s device

    Path: a path between two computing devices on a computer network is a sequence of connected computing devices that begins at the sender and ends at the receiver

    Study plan for the AP Exam

  • Practice More questions on Khan academy by April 27 (unit 1: digital information, Unit 2: The internet, Unit 3: programming, Unit 4: Algorithims)
  • Finalize my program code and create a video showing my program running before April 30
  • Complete 3 more MCQ practice tests before May 4 (collegeboard, Barrons book)
  • Complete the 2023 part 2 and 3 written response practice exam on collegeboard by May 8
  • Review concepts through watching more collegeboard videos by May 14 (Big idea 1, Big idea 2, Big idea 3, Big idea 4, Big idea 5)
    • khan