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In a study of senior CS majors, U.S. students are tops in skills

spectrum.ieee.org

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Re: In a study of senior CS majors, U.S. students are tops in skills

#171

Post by jldugger »

newman8r wrote: post #44
bfrydl wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took a look at the sample questions for the test, having never heard of it. It's 66 multiple choice questions, and many of them seem like “gotcha” questions where one of the answers is an off-by-one error or something like that. And how about this lovely question: > A personal identification number that opens a certain lock consists of a sequence of 3 DIFFERENT digits from 0 though 9, inclusive. How many possible P…

Funny. Yeah I totally would have missed the word "different"... does such a lock even exist in the real world?

The android lock screen, for example.

Re: In a study of senior CS majors, U.S. students are tops in skills

#172

Post by jldugger »

gyc wrote: post #26
daveFNbuck wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also huge variation within countries. The curriculum is basically up to each college or university in the US. I never took this test.

I would assume ABET certified programs would have certain standards or requirements regarding he schools’ curriculums.

Typically CS programs offer a degree track that is ABET accredited, and a few other different options for students with different needs or desires.

Re: In a study of senior CS majors, U.S. students are tops in skills

#173

Post by jldugger »

yogthos wrote: post #143

Yet, Russia consistently dominates programming competitions, which strongly suggests that a multiple choice exam may not actually be representative of real world skills https://www.salon.com/2017/06/18/russian-students-dominate-a...

Or that programming competitions don't represent real world programming either.

Re: In a study of senior CS majors, U.S. students are tops in skills

#174

Post by sha666sum »

BeetleB wrote: post #40

Details on the test: https://www.ets.org/mft/about/content/computer_science Journal paper is here: https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/03/12/1814646116

Of course US students perform better in a US field test. The students should also do Chinese, Russian and Indian tests translated to their languages to eliminate bias.

Re: In a study of senior CS majors, U.S. students are tops in skills

#175

Post by djaouen »

bfrydl wrote: post #36
harias wrote: post #17

> Once the students were selected, the researchers then administered the Major Field Test in Computer Science, an exam that was developed by the U.S. Educational Testing Service and is regularly updated. There is a huge variation among countries in how subjects are taught and tested. I would like to add that many of my peers have resorted to streamlining for whiteboard interviews, and unsurprisingly, they end up with…

I took a look at the sample questions for the test, having never heard of it. It's 66 multiple choice questions, and many of them seem like “gotcha” questions where one of the answers is an off-by-one error or something like that. And how about this lovely question: > A personal identification number that opens a certain lock consists of a sequence of 3 DIFFERENT digits from 0 though 9, inclusive. How many possible P…

> A personal identification number that opens a certain lock consists of a sequence of 3 DIFFERENT digits from 0 though 9, inclusive. How many possible PINs are there?

Do people really struggle with problems like these?

Re: In a study of senior CS majors, U.S. students are tops in skills

#176

Post by mooreds »

somehnreader wrote: post #160
mooreds wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10 * 9 * 8 The first time you pick, you have 10 different numbers to choose from, the second time, 9, the third time 8.

Or if you are like me (and a bit stupid): 1000 = all possible combinations from 000 to 999. less 10 combinations with all numbers identical is 990. now there are three patterns for numbers to be identical left that need to be taken out: 00x 0x0 x00. The x can be replaced with all digits != 0 in this example, so thats 3 (patterns) x 9 ('x' digits) = 27. That times 10 digits that can have double patterns is 270. 1000 -…

Hmmm. I wouldn't have approached it that way. Thanks for sharing! Lots of ways to approach any problem.
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