Sem 1 Study Guide

The first semester exam will be on December 17, 2025 In Room 204. The average of the two quarter exams is worth 20% of your grade. The first semester exam is a cumulative exam that covers Unit 1 through Unit 4.13.

On the actual AP Exam in May, the multiple choice question pace is 2 minutes each, and the free response questions pace is about 22 minutes each). The AP Exam will be at noon, Friday May 15, 2026.

It is a good idea to review your code from homework (Runestone) and the labs. Don't forget that you don't need a computer to practice writing code at https://codingbat.com/java. "Warm up" , "logic", String-1, String-2, String-3, Array-1, Array-2, Array-3, and AP-1 are good categories to practice.

To practice free response questions try

• AP CSA FRQ Practice @ albert.io
• 2024 Practice Sessions 5, 7, and 8 See 2024 Review in class Topics (or go to AP Classroom and select AP Computer Sci A, then Course Guide, then Review, then look for 2024 AP-Exam On-Demand Review)
• Sem 1 FRQ Practice @AP Classroom
• SFHS Java (runestone) 1.10, 2.13, 3.11, 4.9, 5.13, 5,16, 6.7 (But anything from units 1-6 will help)

• ScrambleWord AP Test Question
• SkyView
• AP Questions from 2019 1,2,& 4 (skip #3 because it requires chapter 11 stuff)

To Practice multiple choice questions try

• ArrayList Practice @ albert.io
• AP CSA MCQ Practice @ albert.io
• 2024 Practice Sessions 1, 2, 3 and 4 @AP Classroom (Just skip Question 2 in seesion 3 since it is about Arraylists, our next chapter in the book)
• Sem 1 MC Practice @APClassroom

Things to watch out for:

1. Constructors should initialize the class's fields (fields are private, to encapsulate)
2. When initialzing fields in a constructor, Do not mention its type- this accidentally makes a local variable instead of initializing the classes field that has the same name.
3. Remember to make fields private and methods public,
4. Remember local variables are never public nor private
5. Remember method names should use () for the parameter list, even if there are no parameters
6. Watch for dangling else statements (p 148) - without brackets, the last else belongs to the previous if
7. Do not add a System.out.print when no printing is requested (This can be a 1 or 2 point Extraneous code that causes side effect penalty on the AP Exam)
8. Do not use local variables before first declaring them ( also a AP scoring penalty).
9. Variables are declared ONLY ONCE, not every time.
10. Do not assign a value to a parameter inside a method unless you are asked to (also a AP scoring penalty called Destruction of data)
11. Never use return in a constructor
12. Remember to return something of the same type as a method's header.
13. Do not return something when writing a void method ( a method that isn't supposed to return something (This too has a AP scoring penalty)

Finally, please remember to get a good night's rest and a healthy breakfast! Good Luck!

PS: I have found other helpful free online tutorials for the Basics at LearnJavaOnline.com.