handout #5
CSE142—Computer
Programming I
Programming
Assignment #4
due: Tuesday,
7/18/17, 11 pm
This assignment will give you practice with
interactive programs, if/else statements and methods that return values. Your program will prompt the user for
information about two applicants and compute an overall score for each
applicant. This is a simplified version
of a program that might be used for admissions purposes.
The sample log of execution indicates how your
program is to behave. For each
applicant, we prompt for exam scores (either SAT or ACT) and overall GPA. The exam and GPA information is turned into
numbers between 0 and 100 and these two scores are added together to get an
overall score between 0 and 200. After
obtaining scores for each applicant, the program reports how they compare.
Notice that the program asks for each applicant
whether to enter SAT scores or ACT scores (SAT scores are integers that vary
between 200 and 800, ACT scores are integers that vary between 1 and 36). In the case of SAT scores, the user is
prompted for SAT math, reading, and writing scores. In the case of ACT scores, the user is
prompted for English, math, reading and science scores. These scores are turned into a real-valued
number between 0 and 100 using the following formulas:
After computing this exam score, we compute a
number between 0 and 100 based on the GPA.
The program prompts for the GPA, the maximum GPA, and a transcript
multiplier. All three of these are positive
real values (i.e., they can have a decimal part). The transcript multiplier is a value between
0.8 and 1.0 that the admissions staff use to account for differences across
students and across schools. For
example, a student who takes more AP courses or a student who comes from a high
school that is known to have tough grading standards will get a higher
transcript multiplier. You should turn
this into a score between 0 and 100 using the following formula:
At this point your program
has two scores that vary from 0 to 100, one from test scores and one from
GPA. The overall score for the applicant
is computed as the sum of these two numbers (exam result + gpa
result). Because each of these numbers
is between 0 and 100, the overall score for an applicant ranges from 0 to 200.
As indicated in the sample log of execution,
your program is to report the exam and GPA subscores
and the overall score for each applicant.
These should be rounded to one decimal place when displayed. You are required to do this using the round
method described in lecture (see the Election example from lecture or the BMI
case study from the textbook) or using the printf statement described in
section 4.3 of the textbook (the alternative is to have redundant expressions
throughout your code, which would be bad style). In addition to reporting the score for each
applicant, the program should also produce whichever of the following messages
is appropriate:
The first applicant seems to be better
The second applicant seems to be better
The two applicants seem to be equal
You do not have to perform any error
checking. We will assume that the user
enters numbers that are in the appropriate range. Even though your program is rounding numbers
to one decimal place when they are displayed, it should not round the numbers
that are used to compute results and to compare scores. This can lead to some confusing output. For example, if the exam subscore
is 84.06 and the GPA subscore is 62.78, then they add
up to 146.84. But rounding the displayed
numbers to one digit, these would be displayed as 84.1 plus 62.8 adding up to
146.8. This is the correct output to
produce even though it doesn’t seem to add up properly.
You should use static methods to eliminate
redundant code and to break the problem up into logical subtasks. Your main method should be short so that a
person can easily see the overall structure of the program. You should avoid “chaining” long sequences of
method calls together without returning to main. You are to introduce at least five static
methods other than main and round1 to break this problem up into smaller
subtasks and you should make sure that no single method is doing too much
work. In this program, none of your methods should have more than
15 lines of code in the body of the method (not counting blank lines or
lines with just curly braces on them).
The 15-line limitation is a special requirement for this assignment
because we want you to practice breaking up a program into methods. Be sure to once again include a short comment
at the beginning of your program as well as a short comment for each method
describing what it does. Look at the
Election example discussed in lecture for a good example of eliminating
redundant code and breaking a problem up into logical subtasks. See also the discussion of this program in
section 4.5 of the textbook, especially the section on “Procedural Design
Heuristics” starting on page 295 that explores issues like chaining. Also remember that because this program
involves both integer data and real data, you need to use appropriate type
declarations (type int and calls on nextInt for
integer data, type double and calls on nextDouble for
real-valued data). Finally, you should
construct only one Scanner object for console input.
Name your program Admit.java and to access
Scanner include the following at the beginning of your program:
import java.util.*;
This handout has a sample execution and the
output comparison tool on the class web page has other samples. You are required to exactly reproduce the
format of these sample executions. Limit
yourself to constructs from chapters 1 through 4 of the textbook. You should not be using for loops as a way to
solve this problem.
Sample
log of execution (user input bold and underlined)
This
program compares two applicants to
determine which one seems like the
stronger
applicant. For each candidate I will need
either SAT or ACT scores plus a
weighted GPA.
Information
for applicant #1:
do you have 1) SAT
scores or 2) ACT scores? 1
SAT math? 450
SAT critical reading? 530
SAT writing? 490
exam score = 60.0
overall GPA? 3.4
max GPA? 4.0
Transcript Multiplier? 0.9
GPA score = 76.5
Information
for applicant #2:
do you have 1) SAT
scores or 2) ACT scores? 2
ACT English? 25
ACT math? 20
ACT reading? 18
ACT science? 15
exam score = 54.4
overall GPA? 3.3
max GPA? 4.0
Transcript Multiplier? 0.95
GPA score = 78.4
First
applicant overall score = 136.5
Second
applicant overall score = 132.8
The
first applicant seems to be better