Scoring Guidelines

Scoring criteria

Apply the question scoring criteria first, which always takes precedence. Penalty points can only be deducted in a part of the question that has earned credit via the question rubric. No part of a question (a, b, c) may have a negative point total. A given penalty can be assessed only once for a question, even if it occurs multiple times or in multiple parts of that question. A maximum of $3$ penalty points may be assessed per question.

1-point penalty

• Array/collection access confusion ([] get)
• Extraneous code that causes side-effect (e.g., printing to output, incorrect precondition check)
• Local variables used but none declared
• Destruction of persistent data (e.g., changing value referenced by parameter)
• Void method or constructor that returns a value

No penalty

• Extraneous code with no side-effect (e.g., valid precondition check, no-op)
• Spelling/case discrepancies where there is no ambiguity*
• Local variable not declared provided other variables are declared in some part
• private or public qualifier on a local variable
• Missing public qualifier on a class or constructor header
• Keyword used as an identifier
• Common mathematical symbols used for operators (× • ÷ < > <> ≠)
• [] versus () versus <>
• = instead of == and vice versa
• The length/size confusion for array, String, List, or ArrayList; with or without ( )
• Extraneous [] when referencing an entire array
• [i,j] instead of [i][j]
• Extraneous size in array declaration, e.g., int[size] nums = new int[size];
• Missing ; where structure clearly conveys the intent
• Missing { } where indentation clearly conveys the intent
• Missing ( ) on parameter-less method or constructor invocations
• Missing ( ) around if or while conditions

📌 Note: Spelling and case discrepancies for identifiers fall under the No penalty category only if the correction can be unambiguously inferred from the context, for example, ArayList instead of ArrayList.

As a counterexample, note that if the code declares int G = 99, g = 0;, then uses while (G < 10) instead of while (g < 10), the context does not allow for the reader to assume the use of the lower case variable.

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