MCCE Study Guide for Praxis CS 5652 Exam

The five content areas tested on the Praxis are listed below (Roman Numerals I-V)

The lessons are from the AP CSP Review and Computer Science resources, developed by Khan Academy, which are licensed under a CC-NC-BY-SA-2.0 license. The alignment of Khan units and lessons to the ETS CS 5652 Praxis content outline was done by MCCE.

These are the areas that are covered using the Khan Academy materials. 

NOTE: If you are in one of the MCCE Study cohorts, please request a join code from your instructor to get credit for completing lessons to fulfill the study program requirements.

I. Impacts of Computing

A. Impact of, effects of, and obstacles to computing

1. Creative applications
   • do the complete Computing Innovations Unit
2. Obstacles to equal access
   • The Internet: The Digital Divide (bundled into networks and the internet)
3. Beneficial and harmful effects
   • also in the Computing Innovations Unit
   • The Internet: The Digital Divide (bundled into the topic area: networks and the internet)
   • Digital Information: Digital Copyright and Licenses (bundled into the topic area: data)

B. Intellectual property, ethics, privacy, and security

1. Methods to protect intellectual property and the tradeoffs
   • Digital Information: Digital Copyright and Licenses (bundled into data)
2. Ethical and unethical practices and their implications
   • Digital Information: Digital Copyright and Licenses (bundled into data)
3. Privacy and security issues
   • Computing Innovations: Communication Innovation
   • Online Data Security Unit (Note: The lesson on Secure Internet Protocols is not needed here but relevant for Content Area V: Computing Systems and Networks. Note: make this part of impacts and leave it out of systems and networks)

II. Algorithms and Computational Thinking

A. Abstraction, Patterns, Decomposition, Base Conversion, Algorithm formats

1. Abstraction
2. Pattern recognition, decomposition, and abstraction to create an algorithm
   • Algorithms: Building Algorithms
3. Base conversion (binary, decimal, hex)
   • Digital Information: Bits and Bytes (bundled into Data course)
   • Digital Information: Binary Numbers (bundled into Data course)
4. Develop algorithms (English, flowchart, pseudocode)
   • Algorithms: Building Algorithms
   • Algorithms: Evaluating Algorithms

B. Complexity, Search and Sort, Recursion, Random

1. Limitations of size, space, and solvability
   • Algorithms: Evaluating Algorithms
   • Algorithms: Solving Hard Problems
2. Understand searching and sorting algorithms
   • Algorithms: Evaluating Algorithms
   • Algorithms Unit (non-APCSP) (Note: just the first half of this unit, through Insertion Sort, is covered on the Praxis)
3. Understand simple recursive algorithms
   • Algorithms (non APCSP): Recursive Algorithms
4. Be familiar with the use of randomization in computing
   • Simulations: Creating Simulations (bundled into Data course)

III. Programming

Khan Academy has many programming resources in various languages but does not have any on the Praxis-specific pseudocode. For the study of this section, we recommend the MCCE Google Classroom. (almost complete)

IV. Data

A. Digitalization, Encryption, Decryption

1. Bits, Digital Data, Data Encoding, File Compression
   • Digital Information Unit (Note: lesson on copyright/licenses not needed here but useful for Content Area I: Impacts of Computing)
2. Encryption / Decryption
   • Journey into Cryptography non-APCSP Unit (Note: goes into greater detail than needed for Praxis)
3. Using Tools to Analyze Data
   • Data Analysis: Data Tools

Simulation, Modeling, & Manipulating Data

1. Computing in Simulation and Modeling
   • Simulations Unit
2. Methods to Store, Manage, and Manipulate Data
   • Data Analysis: Data Tools
   • Digital Information: Data Compression
3. Data Collection, Aggregation, and Generation
   • Data Analysis: Big Data
   • Computing Innovations: Monitoring Innovations (bundled into Impacts course)
   • Computing Innovations: Crowdsourcing Innovations (bundled into Impacts course)

V. Computer Systems and Networks

A. Computer Systems, OS, Communication, Cloud Computing

1. OS control and coordinate hardware and software
2. Embedded systems (IoT, ATM, medical devices, etc)
   • Computing Innovations: Monitoring Innovations (bundled into Impacts unit)
3. Types of computing systems
4. Layers of abstraction
5. Fetch decode execute cycles
6. Trade-offs between local, network, and cloud storage
7. Communication between devices
   • The Internet: Connecting Networks

B. Networks, Security and the Web ** This overlaps with the Impacts unit, and is bundled in there

1. Network components
   • The Internet: Connecting Networks
   • The Internet: Web Protocols
   • The Internet: Internet Protocol Suite
2. Factors that impact network functionality
   • The Internet: Connecting Networks
   • The Internet: Scalable Systems
3. Internet and web protocols
   • The Internet: Introducing the Internet
   • The Internet: Addressing the internet
   • The Internet: Routing with Redundancy
   • The Internet: Transporting Packets
   • The Internet: Internet Protocol Suite
   • The Internet: Web Protocols
4. Digital and physical security strategies
   • Online data security: User authentication methods (bundled into Data course)
   • Online data security: Data Encryption Techniques (bundled into Data course)
   • Online data security: Secure Internet Protocols (bundled into Data course)
5. Cybersecurity
   • 5 pillars: confidentiality, integrity, availability, nonrepudiation, authentication (not included in Khan materials)
6. Web components
   • The Internet: Web Protocols