Pre-Assessment for Learners

1) Name: ________________________________________

2) Email address: ________________________________________

6) What is your career stage?

• Undergraduate
• Graduate
• Post-doc
• Faculty
• Industry
• Support staff
• Other: ______________________________

7) Which of the following most closely aligns with your primary discipline?

• Space sciences
• Physics
• Chemistry
• Earth sciences (geology, oceanography, meteorology)
• Life science (ecology, zoology, botany)
• Life science (biology, genetics)
• Brain and neurosciences
• Medicine
• Engineering (civil, mechanical, chemical)
• Computer science and electrical engineering
• Economics
• Humanities and social sciences
• Tech support, lab tech, or support programmer
• Administration
• Other: ______________________________

8) In three sentences or less, please describe your current field of work or research question.

________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________

9) What operating system will you use on the laptop you bring to the bootcamp?

• Linux
• Apple OS X
• Windows
• I do not know what operating system I use.
• I am not bringing a laptop to the bootcamp.
• Other: ________________________________________

10) With which programming languages could you write a program from scratch that reads a column of numbers from a text file and calculates mean and standard deviation of that data?

• C
• C++
• Perl
• MATLAB
• Python
• R
• Java
• Other(s): ________________________________________
• I do not use any programming languages.

11) What best describes how often you currently program?

• I have never programmed.
• I program less than one a year.
• I program once a year.
• I program several times a year.
• I program once a month.
• I program once a week or more.

12) What best describes the complexity of your programming? (Choose all that apply.)

• I have never programmed.
• I write scripts that are a few lines long to analyze data.
• I write programs that are a page or two long for my own use.
• I write programs that are many pages long for my own use and for others to use.
• I am primarily a programmer.

In each of the following scenarios, please select the answer that best applies to you.

13) A tab-delimited file has two columns showing the date and the highest temperature on that day. Write a program to produce a graph showing the average highest temperature for each month.

1. I could not complete this task.
2. I could complete the task with documentation or search engine help.
3. I could complete the task with little or no documentation or search engine help.

14a) How familiar do you think you are with version control?

1. I am not familiar with version control.
2. I am familiar only with the name.
3. I am familiar with version control but have never used it.
4. I am familiar with version control because I have used it or am using it.
5. Version control system I am familiar with (if any): ________________________________________

14b) Answer only if you answered (4) on the previous question.
Given the URL for a project's version control repository, check out a working copy of that project, add a file called notes.txt, and commit the change.

1. I could not complete this task.
2. I could complete the task with documentation or search help.
3. I could complete the task with little or no documentation or search help.

15a) How familiar do you think you are with unit testing and code coverage?

1. I am not familiar with unit testing or code coverage.
2. I am familiar only with the names unit testing and code coverage.
3. I am familiar with unit testing or code coverage but have never used it.
4. I am familiar with unit testing or code coverage because I have or am using it.

15b) Answer only if you answered (4) on the previous question.
Given a 200-line function to test, write half a dozen tests using a unit testing framework and use code coverage to check that they exercise every line of the function.

1. I could not complete this task.
2. I could complete the task with documentation or search engine help.
3. I could complete the task with little or no documentation or search engine help.

16a) How familiar do you think you are with SQL?

1. I am not familiar at all with SQL.
2. I am familiar only with the name SQL.
3. I am familiar with SQL but have never used it.
4. I am familiar with SQL because I have or am using it.

16b) Answer only if you answered (4) on the previous question.
A database has two tables Scientist and Lab. Scientist's columns are the scientist's user ID, name, and email address; Lab's columns are lab IDs, lab names, and scientist IDs. Write an SQL statement that outputs the count of the number of scientists in each lab.

1. I could not complete this task.
2. I could complete the task with documentation or search engine help.
3. I complete the task with little or no documentation or search engine help.

17a) How familiar do you think you are with the command line?

1. I am not familiar at all with the command line.
2. I am familiar only with the name command line.
3. I am familiar with the command line but have never used it.
4. I am familiar with the command line because I have or am using it.

17b) Answer only if you answered (4) on the previous question.
How would you solve this problem? A directory contains 1000 text files. Create a list of all files that contain the word "Drosophila" and save the result to a file called results.txt.

1. I could not create this list.
2. I would create this list using "Find in Files" and "copy and paste".
3. I would create this list using basic command line programs.
4. I would create this list using a pipeline of command line programs.

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