2.2 Problem solving and programming

An OCR H446 answer on object-oriented programming techniques in practice: defining classes with attributes and methods, constructors and instantiation, getters and setters for encapsulation, inheritance with method overriding for polymorphism, and the benefits of object-oriented design.

An OCR H446 answer on programming techniques: sequence, selection and iteration, recursion, subroutines (procedures and functions) with parameters passed by value or by reference, local and global variable scope, and the features of an integrated development environment.

An OCR H446 answer on the computational thinking skills of abstraction and decomposition: the nature and need for abstraction, representational and procedural abstraction and the use of models, and decomposing a problem into smaller, more manageable sub-problems.

An OCR H446 answer on the computational thinking skills of thinking ahead and thinking procedurally: identifying inputs, outputs, preconditions, caching and reusable components, and determining the steps and the order of a procedural solution.

An OCR H446 answer on thinking concurrently: identifying which parts of a problem can be done at the same time, the benefits and limitations of concurrency and parallelism, and the difference between true parallel processing on multiple cores and concurrent processing on a single processor.

An OCR H446 answer on thinking logically and computational methods: identifying decision points and conditions in a solution, and the methods of problem recognition, divide and conquer, backtracking, heuristics, performance modelling and visualisation that make problems solvable.