Interschool Java coding competition

SAGS friendly – Oracle compliant

We know how hard our students work over the three-year period we have them. Now here is an opportunity for them to add some additional coding accolades to their CVs.

To motivate our learners in this direction I intend to offer a “Computer Olympiad – Java only” competition starting this year 2023. Having researched this topic over the past 3 years I have built a multiple-choice question bank of over 350 questions that are equivalent to the Oracle OCA exam yet are also compatible with the Java content we teach them at school.

The competition will be offered at two levels

I

GRADE 11/12

FUNDAMENTAL

Held in April each year

I

GRADE 12

INTERMEDIATE

Held in September each year

Besides generating some healthy interschool competition, learners will be exposed to the OCA Java exam offered by Oracle.

To make it more fun learners can enter as individuals and the school can also put forward an official school team of 3 learners. Each learner will be offered 50 random questions from the question bank. I’m going o secure Sponsorship for the competition. Certificates will also be awarded to the teachers of the winning schools.

The competition will be offered online on the same day and time for everybody.

Entry into the competition must be done beforehand. (see the registration form on the right)

I have attached 64 random questions for you to peruse from the Fundamental competition – you can see that your best learners already know the work. Note that this event will not add any additional teaching load as I intend to offer a few Saturday morning zoom lessons before the competition to learners who would like to do well.

Why I am enthusiastic about this initiative is that the official Computer Olympiad is aimed at naturally gifted coders. This initiative however is aimed at learners who work very hard and know the Java language very well. It is also great to be able to offer an extra event to learners who may be excluded from many other regular school events – this is true whether they participate in the competition only or whether they choose to go ahead and take the international exam.

Due to the nature of the resources needed to run this initiative, there is a cost of R75-00 per participant. This document is intended only as an introduction. More information will follow with the exact dates. I can be contacted in the interim if you have any questions or suggestions. Once I have had an opportunity to gauge the response, I will offer an online information hour to interested teachers. Thank you for your time.

Regards
Steve Eilertsen – Pecanwood College
Steve.eilertsen@gmail.com

PS: Please forward this email to any interested schools outside of the 480 Pretoria cluster. Thank you.

RESOURCES FOR THE COMPETITION

64 example multiple choice questions taken from the competition question bank

Comprehensive topic list for each competition