Graduate Comprehensive Examination
Programming, Data Structures, and Algorithms
This serves as a guide for students preparing for the Graduate
Comprehensive Exam in Programming, Data Structures, and Algorithms.
Below are the topics covered in the exam.
Books:
- Headington and Riley (1994).
Data Abstraction and Structures Using C++.
Heath.
- Standish (1994).
Data Structures, Algorithms & Software Principles in C.
Addison Wesley. (trees and graphs supplement)
- Any data structures and algorithms book will cover most of the topics.
Topics:
- Basic data structures: records, arrays, sets, stacks, queues, lists
- Programming concepts and techniques: recursion, pointers,
dynamic allocation
- Analysis of algorithms: Big-O notation, time complexity
- Array search algorithms: Linear Search, Binary Search
- Sorting algorithms: Bubble Sort, Insertion Sort, Selection Sort,
Quicksort, Mergesort, Heapsort, Treesort
- Hashing: Hash tables, hash functions
- Trees: Binary Search Trees, AVL-trees, B-trees
- Binary tree traversal: inorder, preorder, postorder
- Graph concepts: undirected graphs, directed graphs, paths, cycles,
connectivity
- Graph algorithms: Depth-first Search, Breadth-first Search,
Shortest Path, Minimal Spanning Trees, Topological Sort