CSC 121: Computers and Scientific Thinking
Spring 2026

Test 1 Review

Tue, Feb 17
  • The test will be conducted in-class via Blueline.
  • You are required to bring a laptop to take the test.
  • The test must be taken using the Respondus LockDown browser. Be sure to have it installed and tested before class.
  • It is closed-book and closed-notes.
  • The test will include 52 points, but graded on a scale of 50. (Mistakes Happen!)
Types of questions
  • factual knowledge: TRUE/FALSE, multiple choice
  • conceptual understanding: short answer, discussion
  • synthesis and application: describe/modify HTML page

    There is a practice test in BlueLine with examples of each type of question.
    Note: the practice test can only be taken using the LockDown browser.
Study advice
  • reread book chapters and chapter summaries
  • look over chapter exercises & projects, review questions
  • reference other sources for examples, different perspectives
Course Material Computer Basics hardware vs. software von Neumann architecture: CPU + memory + I/O bits, bytes operating system (OS) The World Wide Web Web development & growth, World Wide Web Consortium key ideas: hypertext, Web server, Web browser, search engines Web protocols: HTTP, HTML caching, cookies The Internet ARPANet development & growth, Internet of Things, Internet Society key ideas: distributed network, packet-switching Internet protocols: TCP, IP IP addresses, domain name servers History of Computers generation 0: mechanical (Jacquard's loom, Babbage & Lovelace, relay machines) generation 1: vacuum tube (COLOSSUS, ENIAC, von Neumann architecture) generation 2: transistor (miniaturization & mass production, high-level languages) generation 3: integrated circuit (mass production of complex circuitry, OS) generation 4: VLSI & microprocessor (Moore's Law, PC revolution, networking) generation 5: ULSI & wireless computing (parallel processing, mobile computing) generation 6: ULSI+ & artificial intelligence (supercomputers, cloud computing) Applications in Artificial Intelligence approaches: expert systems, genetic algorithms, neural nets examples: character recognition, facial recognition, self-driving cars, chatBots, data mining effective and ethical use of Generative AI Creating a Web Page Hypertext Markup Language (HTML): tags, elements structural elements: !doctype, html, head, body, meta text layout: p, br,   headings: h1, h2, ..., h6, hr font formatting: b, i, u, sup, sub lists: ul, ol, li tables: table, tr, td hyperlinks: a; href attribute remote (external) vs. local (internal) address images: img; src, alt, height & width attributes Styling a Page style attribute (can only be 1 per element) color properties: color, background-color alignment properties: text-align, text-indent, margin-left, margin-right, margin font properties: font-family, font-size table property: border-style list property: list-style other text-based elements: span, div aligning images, tables & lists Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) place style properties in a separate file link Web pages to that file using link tag can style subclasses of elements using class attribute