AP Computer Science A
Do you want to cure cancer? Design a video game? Or maybe build interactive art? AP Computer Science A explores how to use, build, and work with the technologies of tomorrow to help answer some of the biggest questions of today. In this course, you’ll design and implement computer programs using a subset of the Java programming language that can be used to develop algorithms, data structures, and solve problems.
Course Content
Unit 1: Using Objects and Methods
You’ll learn the fundamentals of Java, a programming language, and other foundational concepts for coding. You’ll explore reference data as a way to represent real-world objects in a digital world and discover methods to perform more complex operations.
Unit 3: Class Creation
You’ll explore how real-world interactions can be expressed digitally by organizing behaviors and attributes into classes.
Unit 2: Selection and Iteration
You’ll delve into the building blocks of algorithms and focus on using conditional statements to solve problems and control results. You’ll learn about iteration, another building block of algorithms that are for repetition.
Unit 4: Data Collection
You’ll learn techniques and standard algorithms to work with collections of related data, known as data structures. You’ll delve deeper into data sets, exploring array, ArrayList of objects, and 2D arrays.
Tips
Senior (‘26)
Score: 5
AP Computer Science A can be challenging at first, but consistent practice makes a big difference. Try to code a little every day so you become more comfortable with concepts like loops, arrays, and classes. When you do not understand something, go through the code step by step to see how it works instead of just memorizing answers. Additionally, ask the teacher or peers for support. This helps you build strong problem solving skills.
Use the resources available to you such as practice problems and past AP questions. As given to you by APSPU. There will be mistakes and it’s part of learning and debugging will help you improve over time.
Resources
Course Description
Know what is expected of you to know and what is the makeup of your exam. Each topic has its dedicated page. Look at what the rubric will look like for your essays.