AP CSA 1.9 FRQ Practice: Match the Signature

Unit 1: Using Objects and Methods · Lesson 1.9 · FRQ Practice

Match the Signature

A free response question in the shape the exam uses: a stated contract, four rubric parts, and no main method handed to you. Worth 4 points.

Back to the Lesson 1.9 pageAll Unit 1 lessons

Why this question is worth four points

This is the first question on the course that scores you on the signature rather than the body. The methods below are called by code you cannot see and cannot edit, so a method that prints instead of returning, or takes its parameters in the other order, fails every case no matter how correct the arithmetic inside it is. That is precisely how the exam works.

What you are given

Nothing is given. You write a class named Ticket containing exactly the four static methods described below. Do not write a main method: a hidden driver calls your methods and prints what they return.

The question

  1. (a) public static int total(int adults, int children) returns the number of people.
  2. (b) public static int cost(int people, int pricePer) returns people times pricePer.
  3. (c) public static double average(int collected, int people) returns collected divided by people as an exact double.
  4. (d) public static String label(String event, int people) returns the event, a space, then the number of people.

What the reader is looking for

  1. Write class Ticket with the four static methods exactly as their signatures describe. No main method.
  2. Every method RETURNS its answer. A method that prints the answer and returns nothing does not compile against the driver, because the driver uses the returned value.
  3. Part (c) divides two ints and must not truncate, so cast before dividing. The parameter order is collected then people, not people then collected.

Worked examples

These show what a correct answer prints. There are more cases you cannot see, and they use different values, so an answer built around just these numbers will fail.

Example 1 input
2 3 15 88 Concert
Example 1 output
5
75
17.6
Concert 5
Example 2 input
4 3 16 100 Matinee
Example 2 output
7
112
14.285714285714286
Matinee 7

Your answer

Main.java

Input for the Run button

How this is scored: your answer runs against every test case, and the fraction it passes becomes your score out of 4. That is not how a human AP reader marks a rubric, so treat the score as a check on whether your code works, and the rubric above as the thing you are actually practising.


  

  
Stuck?

    
Hint 1
A signature is the name, the parameter types and their ORDER. average(int collected, int people) called with the people first still compiles and still returns the wrong number, which is why the exam writes the order down.

    
Hint 2
return hands a value back to whoever called. System.out.println shows it to a human. The driver needs the first one; printing inside your method adds a stray line to the output and returns nothing.

    
Hint 3
Part (c) is (double) collected / people. Casting the whole quotient instead, as (double) (collected / people), truncates first and then converts the already ruined answer.



  
Before you submit

  
3 mistake(s) that lose points on this question
    
Each of these is a real error the grader catches. Check your answer against them before you submit, not instead of trying.

    
    
      
  • part (c) divides two ints and lets the result widen, instead of casting first
    • 
      
  • part (c) takes its parameters in the other order
    • 
      
  • part (d) joins the event and the count with no space
    • 
    

  


  
Where to go next

  

    Rework the Lesson 1.9 page
    Try the from-scratch exercise for this lesson
    Try the debugging exercise for this lesson
  


  
  






  

















  
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