CS131 Final Review Guide

The final will take place on Thursday, April 23rd. However, unlike normal Thursday classes, the final will be from 12:00 to 1:50. 1:50 is a strict ending time; if you do not finish by then, I'll have to grade what you have accomplished. I don't expect many, if any, students to require the entire time.

The final will cover primarily PowerPoint and Access. There will also be a few questions on general computer knowledge (see below), because I feel that you should be well-rounded. Since the general computer questions appeared on the midterm, they should be easy points.

• Sample parts of a computer and what they do (as seen in presentation)
• Computer shortcuts (either general Windows shortcuts, or Microsoft Office on Windows shortcuts)
• Computer storage (bit, byte, kilo/mega/giga prefixes): know how to convert between / from them, know the following abbreviations (B, KB, MB, GB)

• Basics of navigating PowerPoint (jump around slides, start a presentation, etc.)
• SmartArt: why not just use bullet points? types of smart art, what they look like, and an example or two where you might want to use that type
• Vocab: slide transition, motion path, etc
• What's the easiest way to animate bullet points to appear one after the other?
• Custom animation: How do you set an animation to start without having to click to start it?
• Motion paths: how do these differ from standard animations? What if there doesn't exist a path/pattern that you want your animation to follow, what can you do?
• General order of creating a PowerPoint presentation/slide, what is the general best way of doing the following steps:
  • customize fonts
  • customize colors
  • enter content
  • choose slide layout
  • choose theme
• Animations: what are some benefits to using animation? What are some disadvantages?

• Vocab: primary key, field, record: tell me what they are, and identify them by looking at a screenshot of Access
• What is referential integrity?
• Field data types: know several data types, what they are, when we might want to use each one, and the advantages of using the proper data type (e.g., why use currency when number would work?)
• Why bother to tell Access that a field is required?
• What is a default value and why might we want to set a field's default value?
• Why go through the trouble of telling Access what the relationship between our tables is?
• What is a table? What does it contain and what can it do?
• What is a query? What does it contain and what can it do? Why would we want to use it?
• What is a form? What does it contain and what can it do? Why would we want to use it?
• What is a report? What does it contain and what can it do? Why would we want to use it?
• Design a database question: I'll give a scenario and you'll design one or more tables, explain which relationships we should establish between the fields (if we set any relationships at all), you'll state which fields are primary keys (and why), etc.
• Access can be very picky. Often times, we may want to do an action (delete a table/query, edit a field, change a field property, etc) but it won't let us. Given a scenario where Access is refusing to let the user do a seemingly simple task, explain how to make Access happy so that we can accomplish the task.
  • Ex: Trying to delete a table, when the table is open. How do you close the table?
  • Ex: While entering data into a table, halfway through you realize you only made the first field a primary key instead of the first 2 fields. Access won't let you go to design view though to change it and it won't let you finish entering the record because of duplicate primary key values. How do you fix the table and enter in your data?