Computational Thinking Flashcards
What is abstraction?
What is an abstract model?
Any model of a system which has been based on a real life situation or problem
What are system inputs?
Inputs required to go into a system in any form, in order for it to operate as intended
What are system outputs?
Anything that exits a system in any form, in order for it to operate as intended
- often results of complex processing of inputs with other data
What is meant by preconditions?
Any condition which pre-exists the suggested solution
What is concurrent processing?
Any situation in the design or programming of a system when you would want more than one thing happening at the same time
What are computational methods?
Any method which does something related to computation
E.g. sorting, merging, indexing, searching etc
What is problem recognition?
The acknowledgement and definition of an issue that does or may arise during the performance os a process
What is problem decomposition?
The process by which a complex problem or system is broken down into parts that are easier to conceive, understand, program and maintain
What is meant by ‘divide and conquer’?
Another term for decomposition
What is backtracking?
A general algorithm for finding all or some solutions to computational problems.
- a refined brute force methodology
Explain in detail what backtracking is
An algorithm which incrementally builds to the solution and abandons each partial success as soon as it determines that the partial solution cannot possibly be completed to a valid solution
What is data mining?
The analysis if a large amount of data in a data warehouse to provide new information
What are heuristics?
Rules that are not derived purely from logic but from the experience of a person
What is performance modelling?
The process of carrying out mathematical approximations of how well models perform
