Aqa Computing A-Level: Computational Thinking

Front 1

Automation

Back 1

Creating a computer model of a real life scenario and putting it into action.

Front 2

Logical Reasoning

Back 2

Using a set of facts to determine if new fact are true or false.

Front 3

Algorithm

Back 3

A sequence of steps that can be followed to solve a problem

Front 4

Representational Abstraction

Back 4

Removing unnecessary details so that only information required to solve the problem remain.

Front 5

Abstraction by generalisation/categorisation

Back 5

Putting similar aspects of a problem into hierarchical categories.

(like class inheritance)

Front 6

Procedural Abstraction

Back 6

The concept that all solutions can be broken down into a series of procedures and subroutines.

Front 7

Top-Down Design

Back 7

The programmer works out what each procedure must do without defining how it will do it. The procedure may call other procedures that are not yet defined.

Front 8

Functional Abstraction

Back 8

Breaking down the problem into a series of reusable functions.

Front 9

Data Abstraction

Back 9

Hiding how data is represented so that it is easier to build a new kind of data object.

Front 10

Problem abstraction

Back 10

Removing unnecessary details in a problem until the underlying processing requirements that solve the problem are identified.

Front 11

Information hiding

Back 11

The process of hiding all details of an object that do not contribute to its essential characteristics.

Front 12

Decomposition

Back 12

Breaking down a large task into a series of subtasks.

Front 13

Composition

Back 13

Building a whole system from smaller units.

Front 14

Turing Machine

Back 14

A finite state machine with the ability to read and write data to an unlimited tape.

Front 15

Alphabet

Back 15

The acceptable symbols for a given Turing machine.

Front 16

Read/Write head

Back 16

Can read what is in a cell or write to a cell.

Front 17

Start State

Back 17

The state of the machine at the start of the program.

Front 18

Halting State

Back 18

The state that terminates the program.

Front 19

Transition Function

Back 19

Indicates what should be written at each cell and which direction to move based on the input read.

Front 20

Universal Machine

Back 20

A Turing machine that can simulate the behaviour of any other Turing machine. It processes the other machines transition functions on a tape along side a tape of the data to be processed.

Front 21

How does the Turing machine produce a model of what is computable.

Back 21

Because the Turing machine is able to carry out any algorithm.

Front 22

Brackus-Naur Form

Back 22

A notation for describing the syntax of programming languages.

Front 23

Context Free Language

Back 23

A method of describing the syntax of a language.

Front 24

When would you use brackus-naur form over regex?

Back 24

When the matching is infinite, for example when trying to describe/identify palindrome.

Regex only work when counting or matching symbols in a string when there is a finite limit.

Front 25

Tractable Problem

Back 25

A problem that can be solved in an acceptable amount of time.

Front 26

Intractable Time

Back 26

A problem that cannot be solved within an acceptable amount of time.

Front 27

Halting Problem

Back 27

An unsolvable problem where it is impossible to write a program that can work out whether another program will halt given a particular output.