What about the Computer Science team programming section?

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What about the Computer Science team programming section?

Postby BiscuitXOXO » Fri Mar 26, 2010 11:46 pm

Disclaimer: I'm not discussing questions on the district test, so I'm not breaking any rules :D

Anyways, if a team places first and second individually on the written test, you'd think the team would do very well in the competition. But then the programming section comes along with a bomb of SIXTY points per question, and the team loses by 50 points because they answered one less programming question than the next team.

Let's do the math. How many questions on the written test does it take to make up a single programming question? 60/6 = 10. 10 questions is a fourth of the entire written test! Even if the team had been ahead by not just 10 but ahead 30-40 points which is quite a few more problems, ONE problem in the programming test completely kills the lead.

I'm not unhappy with the results; I mean, we weren't THAT much ahead of them (lol only 8 points actually), so they might have deserved it. I just think the programming test is now overweighted into the overall team score.

Thus I advocate fewer points awarded per question on the programming test! Thoughts?

Meanwhile hoping for wild card...
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Re: What about the Computer Science team programming section?

Postby stupidityismygam » Sat Mar 27, 2010 1:19 am

Programming and the written test are worth the same amount of points in the end. (720/720)

Also, I would argue that I would rather have a team that could program well than know nitpicky syntax. In my eyes, the better programming team is the better Computer Science team.
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Re: What about the Computer Science team programming section?

Postby BiscuitXOXO » Sat Mar 27, 2010 5:37 pm

However, each problem is worth too much in my opinion. In the written test, at least the points are distributed over 40 questions. In the programming test, however, there is only twelve problems, and doing just ONE less completely makes the written scores worthless. Unless the team that did better on the written test did overwhelmingly better, there is no way for any other team to catch up.

I actually really like programming, and I wouldn’t mind if there were more problems. My team usually finishes the easy ones and the medium ones. It’s just the really hard ones we can’t do, and probably can’t do even if we devote a couple of hours to it. The easy ones are also pointless imo; if there were more medium-levels ones that require brainpower but are still possible for mortals to program in a few minutes, I’d be happier.

A programming team that programs one more problem > a team that answers 10 more questions?
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Re: What about the Computer Science team programming section?

Postby BiscuitXOXO » Mon Mar 29, 2010 8:17 pm

Rofl. And the district medals came out, and we got 2nd place medals for the programming part AND 2nd place medals overall. What happened to the 1st place medals for the written part? Biased, man. Not that I really care about district medals. On the bright side, we're wild card for region 4, so time to practice programming!
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