Computer Science
NorthSouth Computer Science (CS) Bees are aimed at nurturing Computer Science and Engineering skills among children attending grades 9 through 12, in a challenging environment.
Proficiency in CS can be personally satisfying and empowering. The underpinnings of everyday life increasingly involve computer technology. CS has become foundational to humankind’s advancement, and is used in almost every field - including manufacturing, health, entertainment, travel, communication, defense, finance, law enforcement, energy, buildings, arts, and of course, education! Students pursuing CS find jobs in all of these fields. The North South Foundation CS Bee will better prepare children to take standardized tests like AP CS, and IB CS, and to pursue these careers.
Even those of us not pursuing CS careers benefit from CS knowledge; all of us use websites, emails and cell phones regularly. Algorithmic thinking assists us everyday in understanding the technology and applications around us, and to solve problems in a structured scientific way.
The contest is open to students qualifying with good placement at the Regional-level CS competition.
In addition to all the general contest rules stated by North South Foundation, the following rules are applicable for Computer Science competition.
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Currently there is only 1 level of competition in Computer Science Bee:
- Senior (Computer Science Bee Level 3): Grades 9, 10, 11 and 12
- A 1st rank winner at the National Finals of the North South Foundation CS Bee (CSB) contest is not eligible for competing in this and future CSB contests conducted by the Foundation.
- The syllabus for the CS bee can be found on this website. It should be understood that any syllabus can only act as a guideline, but in the same given category of syllabus, the level of difficulty can vary dramatically to cover all aspects of the syllabus.
- CS bee is held in one phase and is a multiple-choice format.
- Programming-oriented questions will be specified in pseudocode, flowcharts, or in a high level programming language. When a high-level programming language is used, the question will be specified in both Java-8 and Python-3. Contestants need to be familiar with at least one of these two languages (in addition to pseudocode and flowcharts), and can pick the language of choice. They need not know both programming languages.
- Only your answer choice entries, from the provided multiple choices, are graded. Scratch paperwork is not graded. There is no partial credit.
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When the contest is offered in-person: Only the student’s recorded multiple-choice answers on the answer-sheet are graded. Any answers or other work on the question-paper itself are not graded.
When the contest is offered online: Students can change their selected answer for any question during the contest. Once contest answers are submitted or if the time runs out, the contest cannot be reopened and no answers can be changed. - There are NO negative points for incorrect answers. The contestant will be awarded one point for each correct answer and zero for each incorrect answer.
- Contestants may use blank paper sheets, pens and pencils for scratch work and calculations.
- Contestants must not use calculators, books, handwritten or electronic notes, websites, compilers, interpreters, other development/computer applications, phones, smart watches, or any other form of external help – in person, or by messaging/emails/etc.
- The maximum time allocated to answer the 30 questions is 45 minutes.
- Based on the scores from the phase, the judges will determine the winners.
- At the National Level, top-10 winners will be announced.
- If there is a tie, to break the ties, the scheme outlined below is followed in the order given:
- Score among questions 1-30
- Score among questions 26-30
- Score among questions 21-25
- Score among questions 11-20
- Score among questions 1-10
If the above steps fail to break the tie in question, the foundation may use additional criteria to resolve the ties or to award joint ranks, at the discretion of the subject coordinator.
We offer CS workshops, PrepClubs and/or coaching sessions to benefit the students. Please review the prerequisites of the offerings; some presume that students are already familiar with Java/Python programming, and cover additional CS concepts that are aligned with (but are not necessarily a superset of) the syllabus.
In addition, this page contains general resources for preparation for the contests. Some sample resources and books are categorized below. This is not an endorsement of any commercial product by us. You can search the web for better results and up-to-date links.
Both the AP Computer Science courses/exams websites: here and here
Khan Academy - Online Courses, Lessons and Practice: here.
“Building Java Programs” book - here.
“Learning Python” book - here.
The syllabus for North South Foundation CS Bee covers programming, algorithms and data structures, and also general understanding of computing. The following provides an overview of the required skills, though is not intended as a comprehensive list.
- Students are required to know either Java or Python programming. They do not need to know both. Students should also be able to understand pseudocode and flowcharts.
- Variable types, boolean math, bit operations, modulo math, 1D and 2D arrays, conditionals, iteration, methods, functions, recursion, classes, inheritance. For details, please see the AP syllabus.
- Data structures: Arrays, Linked lists, Hash-maps, Queues, Stacks, Trees, and Binary Search Trees.
- Sorting and Search algorithms.
- Algorithm time and space analysis (big-O complexity)
- General knowledge of popular OSes, databases, networking technologies including IP addressing, storage and memory, and computing principles.
Sample Questions: here