The purpose of this course is to prepare students for the Advanced Placement Computer Science A exam on Tuesday, May 2, 2017. The format and scope of the test are specified by the College Board, which approves our curriculum each year. The language for the course is Java. Students will learn object-oriented program design, program implementation, program analysis, standard data structures, and algorithms. All students enrolled in this course will take the AP exam.

The following goals are specified by the College Board for this course. By the end of this course, students should be able to:

• Design and implement solutions to problems by writing, running, and debugging computer programs.
• Use and implement commonly used algorithms and data structures.
• Develop and select appropriate algorithms and data structures to solve problems.
• Code fluently in an object-oriented paradigm using the programming language Java. Students are expected to be familiar with and be able to use standard Java library classes from the AP Java subset.
• Read and understand a large program consisting of several classes and interacting objects. Students should be able to read and understand a description of the design and development process leading to such a program.
• Recognize the ethical and social implications of computer use.