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AP Computer Science Principles — Practice Questions flashcards

6 of 50 questions free to study here · 5 topics · the whole deck is built into Willys

Multiple-choice practice questions, one best answer each, on program design and testing, binary and compression, pseudocode tracing, algorithms, the Internet, parallel computing and impacts.

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Practice deck · part of AP Computer Science Principles · written against: College Board AP Computer Science Principles Course and Exam Description (five big ideas). Updated 2026-10-10.

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  1. A team is designing an app for a public library and wants to reduce the chance that the design overlooks the needs of some patrons. Which practice helps most?

    A) Gathering input from a diverse group of team members and users
    B) Basing the requirements on the developers' own reading habits
    C) Assigning the whole design to the most experienced programmer
    D) Waiting to collect user feedback until the program is finished
    A) Gathering input from a diverse group of team members and users

    Diverse perspectives help catch needs the original authors missed and reduce bias in the design. Leaving the design to one expert, however skilled, narrows the viewpoints that shape it.
    Creative Development › Collaboration and Program Design
  2. A developer builds a game one feature at a time, making sure the scoring module works correctly before starting on the level module. Which development approach is this?

    A) Event-driven programming
    B) Incremental development
    C) Pair programming
    D) Iterative development
    B) Incremental development

    Incremental development builds a program in small pieces, confirming each works before adding the next. Iterative development instead repeats design, test and refine cycles on the program as a whole based on feedback.
    Creative Development › Collaboration and Program Design
  3. How many different values can be represented with 7 bits?

    A) 256
    B) 64
    C) 128
    D) 127
    C) 128

    Each bit doubles the count, so 7 bits give 2 to the 7th power, or 128, values. The largest unsigned value is 127, because counting starts at 0.
    Data › Binary Numbers and Overflow
  4. What are the values of a and b after these statements run in order: a ← 4, b ← 7, a ← a + b, b ← a - b?

    A) a is 7 and b is 4
    B) a is 11 and b is 4
    C) a is 4 and b is 7
    D) a is 11 and b is 7
    B) a is 11 and b is 4

    After a ← a + b, a holds 11; then b ← a - b computes 11 − 7 = 4. a keeps the value 11, so the two values are not simply swapped.
    Algorithms and Programming › Variables Lists and Procedures
  5. A large file is sent across the Internet as packets. Which statement is accurate?

    A) Packets may take different routes and arrive out of order
    B) Routers merge the packets into one large packet along the way
    C) All packets must follow the same route in the same order
    D) Packets carry only data and no source or destination information
    A) Packets may take different routes and arrive out of order

    Each packet carries metadata such as its source, destination and position, so packets can travel by different routes and be reassembled in order at the destination.
    Computer Systems and Networks › The Internet and Routing
  6. A hiring program trained on a company's past hiring decisions ranks applicants from some groups lower, though no programmer wrote any rule about groups. What is the most likely cause?

    A) The applicant files were stored with lossy compression
    B) The program ran on parallel rather than sequential hardware
    C) The developers used an iterative development process
    D) The training data reflected past human bias
    D) The training data reflected past human bias

    An algorithm trained on biased past decisions can reflect and amplify existing human bias, even without any explicit rule. How the files were stored or the hardware it ran on does not create this pattern.
    Impact of Computing › Benefits Harms and Bias

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About these cards

Review status: Second-reader reviewed, with corrections applied.

Checked against:

  • Topic outline and pseudocode conventions follow the College Board AP Computer Science Principles Course and Exam Description in effect as of the 2026–27 school year, Big Ideas 1–5, and its exam reference sheet (the AP name is used nominatively; no course or exam text reproduced).
  • Binary conversions, pseudocode traces and parallel-timing calculations were checked by running the equivalent logic in Python.

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