Clarification details
Updated December 2019. This clarification has been updated to address issues that have arisen from moderation.
The language used for this standard may be drag-and-drop or text based.
Students must use variables storing at least two different data types in their program. They must also have iteration (looping), selection (if, if else, or case), and sequence control structures.
This standard requires that a student’s program uses at least two collections to store data, or uses at least two user-defined methods, functions or procedures. Using one collection and one user-defined method does not meet the standard.
Students are required to test and debug their program. Testing should be clearly documented. In particular, the evidence should clearly show which tests the program has passed.
For Merit, students need to follow conventions for the programming language. Most languages have well-established conventions, particularly relating to naming and code layout. There are automated tools to check conventions available for many popular languages.
At Merit, the program should have been tested on both ‘expected’ cases and relevant ‘boundary’ cases. The task must provide the opportunity for ‘boundary’ cases to be tested.
For Excellence, the program needs to be flexible and robust, for example using constants in place of numeric literals. The program also should have been comprehensively tested.