Computer ScienceCode 2210
Algorithm design and problem-solving
What this topic asks you to be able to do
- Understand the stages a program passes through as it is developed, known as the program development life cycle, limited to: analysis, design, coding and testing
- know that every computer system is built from sub-systems, and that these sub-systems are in turn built from further sub-systems
- Understand how a problem may be decomposed by splitting it into the parts it is built from
- apply a variety of approaches when designing and constructing a solution to a problem
- explain what a given algorithm is intended to achieve
- Understand the standard methods used to solve problems
- Understand why input data has to be validated, and what kinds of validation check can be made on it
- Understand why input data has to be verified, and what kinds of verification check can be made on it
- suggest and make use of suitable test data
- Complete a trace table as a written record of an algorithm's dry-run
- Identify the errors in algorithms that are provided and suggest how each one could be put right
- Write algorithms, and amend existing ones, to solve the problems or scenarios given, using: pseudocode, program code and flowcharts