Poland Liceum ogólnokształcące, klasa I Computer science

1. Understanding, analysing and solving problems

Computational thinking · Algorithms on numbers · Algorithms on texts and sorting

• Introduction to Problem Solving – Problem solving on a computer has stages: analyse the problem (inputs, outputs, rules), develop an algorithm (a finite, clear, ordered set of steps), code it in a programming language, test it with different inputs, and debug (find and remove errors). An algorithm can be shown as a flowchart (oval = start/stop, parallelogram = input/output, rectangle = process, diamond = decision, arrows = flow) or as pseudocode (structured plain English). Decomposition breaks a big problem into smaller sub-problems that are solved separately and then joined.
• Sorting Algorithms – A sorting algorithm puts a list in order. Bubble sort swaps neighbours, insertion sort slides each item into a sorted part, selection sort picks the smallest each time, and merge sort splits the list and merges sorted halves. Merge sort needs far fewer comparisons on long lists (about n log₂ n instead of about n²/2).