[Year 12 SofDev] Revision activity

[Mark KELLY]

After flogging exam theory, exam practice, and U4O2 theory for about 2 weeks
solid, I was trying to think up a useful alternative activity.

Today I'm going to get the kids to create their own pseudocode with logical
errors that they can share with each other and solve the problems with
deskchecking.

I've noticed exam pseudocode tends to use the same logical errors regularly,
so the kids can frame their errors around things like:

- confusing < and > with <= and >= and causing boundary condition errors
- incorrect initialisation of variables (e.g. setting to 0 instead of 1) so
counting goes awry
- incorrect choice of loops - i.e. using a "test at top" loop (e.g.
WHILE/WEND) instead of a "test at bottom" loop (DO/WHILE)
- using OR instead of AND & vice versa
- overflowing an array

With any luck it should help them practise desk checking and pseudocode
creation. If I get any good ones, I'll share them here.
If you do the same we can collate a neat bundle of brain teasers.

Regards

-- 
Mark Kelly
Manager of ICT, Reporting, IT Learning Area
McKinnon Secondary College
McKinnon Rd McKinnon 3204, Victoria, Australia
Direct line / Voicemail: +613 8520 9085, Fax +613 9578 9253
kel at mckinnonsc.vic.edu.au
VCE IT Lecture Notes: http://vceit.com
Moderator: IT Applications Edulist <http://www.edulists.com.au/>

Want a good time? Call 0112358. Ask for Mr Fibonacci.
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