COMPUTER SCIENCE (868)

CLASS XII

There will be two papers in the subject: Morgan’s laws; law of implication (p ⇒ q ≡
~p ∨ q); law of biconditional ((p ⇔ q) ≡
Paper I: Theory……….. 3 hours….70 marks
(p ⇒ q) ∧ (q ⇒ p)); identity (p ≡ p); law of
Paper II: Practical…….. 3 hours….30 marks negation (~ (~p) ≡ p); law of excluded middle
(p ∨~p ≡ true); law of contradiction (p∧~p ≡
PAPER I –THEORY – 70 MARKS
false); tautology and contingency
Paper I shall be of 3 hours duration and be divided simplification rules for ∧, ∨. Converse,
into two parts. inverse and contra positive.
Part I (20 marks): This part will consist of (b) Binary valued quantities; basic postulates
compulsory short answer questions, testing of Boolean algebra; operations AND, OR and
knowledge, application and skills relating to the entire NOT; truth tables.
syllabus.
(c) Basic theorems of Boolean algebra
Part II (50 marks): This part will be divided into (e.g. duality, idempotence, commutativity,
three Sections, A, B and C. Candidates will be associativity, distributivity, operations with 0
required to answer two questions out of three from and 1, complements, absorption, involution);
Section A (each carrying 10 marks) and two questions De Morgan’s theorem and its applications;
out of three from Section B (each carrying 10 marks) reducing Boolean expressions to sum of
and two questions out of three from Section C (each products and product of sums forms;
carrying 5 marks). Therefore, a total of six questions Karnaugh maps (up to four variables).
are to be answered in Part II. Verify the laws of Boolean algebra using truth
tables. Inputs, outputs for circuits like half
SECTION A
and full adders, majority circuit etc., SOP and
1. Boolean Algebra POS representation; Maxterms & Minterms,
(a) Propositional logic, well formed formulae, Canonical and Cardinal representation,
truth values and interpretation of well formed reduction using Karnaugh maps and Boolean
formulae (wff), truth tables, satisfiable, algebra.
unsatisfiable and valid formulae. Equivalence
2. Computer Hardware
laws and their use in simplifying wffs.
Propositional variables; the common logical (a) Elementary logic gates (NOT, AND, OR,
NAND, NOR, XOR, XNOR) and their use in
connectives (~ (not)(negation), ∧
circuits.
(and)(conjunction), ∨ (or)(disjunction), ⇒
(implication), ⇔ (biconditional); definition of (b) Applications of Boolean algebra and logic
a well-formed formula (wff); `representation gates to half adders, full adders, encoders,
of simple word problems as wff (this can be decoders, multiplexers, NAND, NOR as
used for motivation); the values true and universal gates.
false; interpretation of a wff; truth tables; Show the correspondence between Boolean
satisfiable, unsatisfiable and valid formulae. methods and the corresponding switching circuits
Equivalence laws: commutativity of ∧, ∨; or gates. Show that NAND and NOR gates are
associativity of ∧, ∨; distributivity; De

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 universal by converting some circuits to purely (c) Basic input/output using Scanner from JDK;
NAND or NOR gates. input/output exceptions. Tokens in an input
stream, concept of whitespace, extracting
SECTION B tokens from an input stream (String Tokenizer
The programming element in the syllabus (Sections B class).
and C) is aimed at algorithmic problem solving and
6. Primitive values, Wrapper classes, Types and
not merely rote learning of Java syntax. The Java
casting
version used should be 5.0 or later. For programming,
the students can use any text editor and the javac and Primitive values and types: byte, int, short, long,
java programs or any other development environment: float, double, boolean, char. Corresponding
for example, BlueJ, Eclipse, NetBeans etc. BlueJ is wrapper classes for each primitive type. Class as
strongly recommended for its simplicity, ease of use type of the object. Class as mechanism for user
and because it is very well suited for an ‘objects first’ defined types. Changing types through user
approach. defined casting and automatic type coercion for
some primitive types.
3. Implementation of algorithms to solve
problems 7. Variables, Expressions
The students are required to do lab assignments in Variables as names for values; named constants
the computer lab concurrently with the lectures. (final), expressions (arithmetic and logical) and
Programming assignments should be done such their evaluation (operators, associativity,
that each major topic is covered in at least one precedence). Assignment operation; difference
assignment. Assignment problems should be between left hand side and right hand side of
designed so that they are sufficiently challenging. assignment.
Students must do algorithm design, address
correctness issues, implement and execute the 8. Statements, Scope
algorithm in Java and debug where necessary. Statements; conditional (if, if else, if else if,
Self explanatory. switch case, ternary operator), looping (for, while,
do while, continue, break); grouping statements in
4. Programming in Java (Review of Class XI blocks, scope and visibility of variables.
Sections B and C)
9. Methods
Note that items 4 to 13 should be introduced
almost simultaneously along with classes and Methods (as abstractions for complex user defined
their definitions. operations on objects), formal arguments and
While reviewing, ensure that new higher order actual arguments in methods; Static method and
problems are solved using these constructs. variables. The this Operator. Examples of
algorithmic problem solving using methods
5. Objects (number problems, finding roots of algebraic
equations etc.).
(a) Objects as data (attributes) + behaviour
(methods); object as an instance of a class. 10. Arrays, Strings
Constructors.
Structured data types – arrays (single and multi-
(b) Analysis of some real-world programming
dimensional), address calculations, strings.
examples in terms of objects and classes.
Example algorithms that use structured data types
(e.g. searching, finding maximum/minimum,

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 sorting techniques, solving systems of linear SECTION C
equations, substring, concatenation, length, access Inheritance, Interface, Polymorphism, Data
to char in string, etc.). structures
Storing many data elements of the same type
12. Inheritance, Interfaces and Polymorphism
requires structured data types – like arrays.
Access in arrays is constant time and does not (a) Inheritance; super and derived classes;
depend on the number of elements. Address member access in derived classes; redefinition
calculation (row major and column major), of variables and methods in subclasses;
Sorting techniques (bubble, selection, insertion). abstract classes; class Object; protected
Structured data types can be defined by classes – visibility. Subclass polymorphism and
String. Introduce the Java library String class and dynamic binding.
the basic operations on strings (accessing Emphasize inheritance as a mechanism to
individual characters, various substring reuse a class by extending it. Inheritance
operations, concatenation, replacement, index of should not normally be used just to reuse
operations). some methods defined in a class but only
when there is a genuine specialization (or
11. Recursion
subclass) relationship between objects of the
Concept of recursion, simple recursive methods super class and that of the derived class.
(e.g. factorial, GCD, binary search, conversion of
(b) Interfaces in Java; (Conceptual)
representations of numbers between different
bases). Emphasize the difference between the Java
language construct interface and the word
Many problems can be solved very elegantly by
interface often used to describe the set of
observing that the solution can be composed of
method prototypes of a class.
solutions to ‘smaller’ versions of the same
problem with the base version having a known 13. Data structures
simple solution. Recursion can be initially
motivated by using recursive equations to define (a) Basic data structures (stack, queue,
certain methods. These definitions are fairly implementation directly through classes;
obvious and are easy to understand. The definition through an interface and multiple
definitions can be directly converted to a implementations by implementing the
program. Emphasize that any recursion must have interface. Conversion of Infix to Prefix and
a base case. Otherwise, the computation can go Postfix notations.
into an infinite loop. Basic algorithms and programs using the
The tower of Hanoi is a very good example of how above data structures.
recursion gives a very simple and elegant solution (b) Binary trees, tree traversals (Conceptual).
where as non-recursive solutions are quite
The following should be covered
complex.
Binary trees: apart from the definition the
following concepts should be covered: root,
internal nodes, external nodes (leaves),
height (tree, node), depth (tree, node), level,
size, degree, siblings, sub tree, completeness,
balancing, traversals (pre, post and in-order).

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 PAPER II: PRACTICAL – 30 MARKS are expected to do a minimum of twenty assignments
for the year.
This paper of three hours’ duration will be evaluated
by the Visiting Examiner appointed locally and EVALUATION:
approved by the Council.
Marks (out of a total of 30) should be distributed as
The paper shall consist of three programming given below:
problems from which a candidate has to attempt any
Continuous Evaluation
one. The practical consists of the two parts:
Candidates will be required to submit a work file
1. Planning Session
containing the practical work related to programming
2. Examination Session assignments done during the year.
The total time to be spent on the Planning session and Programming assignments done 10 marks
the Examination session is three hours. throughout the year (Internal Evaluation)
A maximum of 90 minutes is permitted for the
Programming assignments done 5 marks
Planning session and 90 minutes for the Examination
throughout the year (Visiting Examiner)
session.
Candidates are to be permitted to proceed to the
Terminal Evaluation
Examination Session only after the 90 minutes of
the Planning Session are over. Solution to programming problem on 15 Marks
the computer
Planning Session
Marks should be given for choice of algorithm and
The candidates will be required to prepare an
implementation strategy, documentation, correct output
algorithm and a hand written Java program to solve
on known inputs mentioned in the question paper,
the problem.
correct output for unknown inputs available only to the
Examination Session examiner.
The program handed in at the end of the Planning NOTE:
session shall be returned to the candidates. The Algorithm should be expressed clearly using any
candidates will be required to key-in and execute the standard scheme such as a pseudo code.
Java program on seen and unseen inputs individually
EQUIPMENT
on the Computer and show execution to the Visiting
Examiner. A printout of the program listing including There should be enough computers to provide for a
output results should be attached to the answer script teaching schedule where at least three-fourths of the
containing the algorithm and handwritten program. time available is used for programming.
This should be returned to the examiner. The program Schools should have equipment/platforms such that all
should be sufficiently documented so that the the software required for practical work runs properly,
algorithm, representation and development process is i.e. it should run at acceptable speeds.
clear from reading the program. Large differences
between the planned program and the printout will Since hardware and software evolve and change very
result in loss of marks. rapidly, the schools may have to upgrade them as
required.
Teachers should maintain a record of all the
assignments done as part of the practical work through Following are the recommended specifications as of
the year and give it due credit at the time of now:
cumulative evaluation at the end of the year. Students

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The Facilities: Software:
• A lecture cum demonstration room with a • Any suitable Operating System can be used.
MULTIMEDIA PROJECTOR/ an LCD and • JDK 6 or later.
O.H.P. attached to the computer. • Documentation for the JDK version being used.
• A white board with white board markers should • A suitable text editor. A development
be available. environment with a debugger is preferred
(e.g. BlueJ, Eclipse, NetBeans). BlueJ is
• A fully equipped Computer Laboratory that recommended for its ease of use and simplicity.
allows one computer per student.
• Internet connection for accessing the World
Wide Web and email facility.
• The computers should have a minimum of
1 GB RAM and a P IV or higher processor. The
basic requirement is that it should run the
operating system and Java programming system
(Java compiler, Java runtime environment, Java
development environment) at acceptable speeds.
• Good Quality printers.

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 SAMPLE TABLE FOR PRACTICAL WORK
Assessment of Assessment of the Practical Examination TOTAL MARKS
Practical File (To be evaluated by the Visiting Examiner only) (Total Marks are to
Unique be added and
Identification Internal Visiting Algorithm Java Program with Hard Output entered by the
S. No.
Number (Unique Evaluation Examiner internal Copy Visiting Examiner)
ID) of the candidate 10 Marks 5 Marks Documentation (printout)
3 Marks 7 Marks 2 Marks 3 Marks 30 Marks

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

Name of the Visiting Examiner:_________________________________