Vocab

Question 1

What is a Bit?

Answer 1

A binary digit.

Question 2

What is a Byte?

Answer 2

Made up of 8 bits.

Question 3

What is an Overflow Error?

Answer 3

An error from attempting to represent a number that is too large.

Question 4

What is a Round-Off Error?

Answer 4

An error from attempting to represent a number that is too precise. The value is rounded.

Question 5

What is Analog Data?

Answer 5

Data with values that change continuously, or smoothly, over time.

Examples include music, colors of a painting, or position of a sprinter during a race.

Question 6

What is Digital Data?

Answer 6

Data that changes discreetly through a finite set of possible values.

Question 7

What is Sampling?

Answer 7

A process for creating a digital representation of analog data by measuring the analog data at regular intervals called samples.

Question 8

What is Lossless Compression?

Answer 8

A process for reducing the number of bits needed to represent something without losing any information. This process is reversible.

Question 9

What is Lossy Compression?

Answer 9

A process for reducing the number of bits needed to represent something in which some information is lost or thrown away. This process is not reversible.

Question 10

What is a Computing Device?

Answer 10

A machine that can run a program, including computers, tablets, servers, routers, and smart sensors.

Question 11

What is a Computing System?

Answer 11

A group of computing devices and programs working together for a common purpose.

Question 12

What is a Computing Network?

Answer 12

A group of interconnected computing devices capable of sending or receiving data.

Question 13

What is a Path in networking?

Answer 13

The series of connections between computing devices on a network starting with a sender and ending with a receiver.

Question 14

What is Bandwidth?

Answer 14

The maximum amount of data that can be sent in a fixed amount of time, usually measured in bits per second.

Question 15

What is a Protocol?

Answer 15

An agreed upon set of rules that specify the behavior of some system.

Question 16

What is an IP Address?

Answer 16

The unique number assigned to each device on the internet.

Question 17

What is Internet Protocol (IP)?

Answer 17

A protocol for sending data across the internet that assigns unique numbers (IP addresses) to each connected device.

Question 18

What is a Router?

Answer 18

A type of computer that forwards data across a network.

Question 19

What is Redundancy?

Answer 19

The inclusion of extra components so that a system can continue to work even if individual components fail.

For example, having more than one path between any two connected devices in a network.

Question 20

What is Fault Tolerant?

Answer 20

Can continue to function even in the event of individual component failures.

Question 21

What is User Datagram Protocol (UDP)?

Answer 21

A protocol for sending packets quickly with minimal error-checking and no resending of dropped packets.

Useful when split seconds matter more than correcting errors, like video-conferencing, live streaming, or online gaming.

Question 22

What is Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)?

Answer 22

A protocol for sending packets that does error-checking to ensure all packets are received and properly ordered.

Useful when accuracy matters more than saving a split second, like sending emails, photos, or just browsing websites.

Question 23

What is a Datastream?

Answer 23

Information passed through the internet in packets.

Question 24

What is a Packet?

Answer 24

A chunk of data sent over a network.

Question 25

What is Packet Metadata?

Answer 25

Data added to packets to help route them through the network and reassemble the original message.

Question 26

What is a User Interface?

Answer 26

The inputs and outputs that allow a user to interact with a piece of software.

Question 27

What is Input?

Answer 27

Data that is sent to a computer for processing by a program.

Question 28

What is Output?

Answer 28

Any data that is sent from a program to a device.

Question 29

What is a Program Statement?

Answer 29

A command or instruction.

Question 30

What is a Program?

Answer 30

A collection of program statements.

Question 31

What is Sequential Programming?

Answer 31

Program statements run in order, from top to bottom.

Question 32

What is Event Driven Programming?

Answer 32

Some program statements run when triggered by an event, like a mouse click or a key press.

Question 33

What is Documentation?

Answer 33

A written description of how a command or piece of code works or was developed.

Question 34

What is a Comment in programming?

Answer 34

A form of program documentation written into the program to be read by people.

Question 35

What is Pair Programming?

Answer 35

A collaborative programming style in which two programmers switch between writing code and tracking or planning high level progress.

Question 36

What is an Expression?

Answer 36

A combination of operators and values that evaluates to a single value.

Question 37

What is a Variable?

Answer 37

Holds one value at a time.

Question 38

What is an Assignment Operator?

Answer 38

Allows a program to change the value represented by a variable.

Question 39

What is Iteration?

Answer 39

A repetitive portion of an algorithm which repeats a specified number of times or until a given condition is met.

Question 40

What is an Infinite Loop?

Answer 40

Occurs when the ending condition will never evaluate to true.

Question 41

What is a Filter?

Answer 41

Create a subset of elements from the original list.

Question 42

What is Reduce?

Answer 42

Reduce the list down to a single element, for example: the smallest number in the list.

Question 43

What is a For Loop?

Answer 43

Used to traverse a list.

Question 44

What is Traversal?

Answer 44

The process of accessing each item in a list one at a time.

Question 45

What is Efficiency?

Answer 45

A measure of how many steps are needed to complete an algorithm.

Question 46

What is a Linear Search?

Answer 46

A search algorithm which checks each element of a list, in order, until the desired value is found.

Question 47

What is a Binary Search?

Answer 47

A search algorithm that starts at the middle of a sorted set of numbers and removes half of the data.

Question 48

What is a Problem in computing?

Answer 48

A general description of a task that can (or cannot) be solved with an algorithm.

Question 49

What is an Algorithm?

Answer 49

A finite set of instructions that accomplish a task.

Question 50

What is Sequencing?

Answer 50

Putting steps in order.

Question 51

What is Selection?

Answer 51

Deciding which steps to do next.

Question 52

What is Iteration in algorithms?

Answer 52

Doing some steps over and over.

Question 53

What is Reasonable Time?

Answer 53

Algorithms with a polynomial efficiency or lower are said to run in a reasonable amount of time.

Question 54

What is Unreasonable Time?

Answer 54

Algorithms with exponential or factorial efficiencies are examples of algorithms that run in an unreasonable amount of time.

Question 55

What are Decision Problems?

Answer 55

Problems that ask 'is there a path?'

Question 56

What are Optimization Problems?

Answer 56

Problems that ask 'what is the shortest path?'

Question 57

What is the Travelling Salesman Problem?

Answer 57

A problem that can be solved with an algorithm, which checks each possible option.

Question 58

What are Heuristics?

Answer 58

Provide a 'good enough' solution to a problem when an actual solution is impractical or impossible.

Question 59

What is an Undecidable Problem?

Answer 59

A problem for which no algorithm can be constructed that is always capable of providing a correct yes or no answer.

Question 60

What is Sequential Computing?

Answer 60

Programs run in order, one command at a time.

Question 61

What is Parallel Computing?

Answer 61

Programs are broken into small pieces, some of which are run simultaneously.

Question 62

What is Distributed Computing?

Answer 62

Programs are run on multiple devices.

Question 63

What is Speedup?

Answer 63

The time used to complete a task sequentially divided by the time to complete a task in parallel.