INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTER SCIENCE 2024/2025 Masters Programmes 
 
Coursework Administrative Details 
 
Module/Lecture Course: COMP42215 Introduction to Computer Science 
Deadline for submission: 14:00 Friday 13
th
 December 2024 
Work returned: Week Beginning 13
th
 January 2025 
Submission 
instructions: 
Submit via Jupyterhub on NCC. Video guidance will be 
provided separately. 
Format: You should submit a single Jupyter notebook file that 
contains your code and written answers. Do not put 
your name on your work, just your username. 
Contribution: This coursework contributes 100% to the final mark for 
the module. 
 
In accordance with University procedures, submissions that are up to 5 working 
days late will be subject to a cap of the module pass mark, and later submissions 
will receive a mark of zero. 
 
Content and skills covered by the assignment: 
• Be able to write computer programs in Python 
• Be able to select appropriate data structures 
• Be able to evaluate the complexity of an algorithm 
• Effective written communication 
• Planning, organising and time-management 
• Problem solving and analysis 
  
INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTER SCIENCE 2024/2025 Masters Programmes 
 
General Requirements 
You should develop an iPython (Jupyter) notebook to assess the performance and 
algorithmic complexity of various algorithms using a range of data structures. Your 
written answers should be meet the word limits described in each question. 
In each question that requires you to write code you should consider issues such as 
error checking, the use of appropriate data structures, the efficiency of your code and 
comments to aid understanding. 
Please answer each question in a separate code block in your Jupyter notebook, and 
clearly label each with a comment containing the question number. 
 
Section 1 (10%) 
 
1) Write a function to generate a Python list that contains random unique integers, 
i.e. no value should appear more than once in the list. The function should take 
as an argument the desired size of the list and set a seed of your choice. [4%] 
2) Write a function to convert a Python list of integers into a NumPy array of 
integers. The function should take as an argument a Python list. [2%] 
3) Write a function to convert a Python list into a dictionary. The keys of the 
dictionary should be the values stored in the list, and the values should be 
randomly generated floating points values. The function should take as an 
argument a Python list. [4%] 
 
Section 2 (25%) 
 
4) Write a function that takes a Python list and an integer value as arguments, and 
returns True if the integer value exists in the list. The function should return False 
otherwise. [3%] 
5) Write a function that takes a NumPy array and an integer value as arguments, 
and returns True if the integer value exists in the array. The function should 
return False otherwise. [3%] 
6) Write a function that takes a Python dictionary and an integer value as 
arguments, and returns True if the integer value exists as a key in the dictionary. 
The function should return False otherwise. [3%] 
7) Time your functions from Q4, Q5 and Q6 on an appropriate range of input sizes 
(using your solutions to Q1, Q2 and Q3 to generate the inputs). Use the data you 
collect to draw graphs (using matplotlib) that compare the performance of your 
functions. [8%] 
 
Questions continue onto next page  
INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTER SCIENCE 2024/2025 Masters Programmes 
 
8) Discuss in 200 words or less what your results show. You should consider the 
computational complexity of your functions. If you don’t manage to collect any 
data to discuss you should research and discuss what you would expect the 
results to show. [8%] 
 
Section 3 (15%) 
 
9) Write a function to sort a Python list of integers. You may implement any 
algorithm of your choosing, or use one of the built-in sorting methods. [2%] 
10) Write a function that takes a sorted Python list and an integer value as 
arguments. You should use functions available to you in the ‘bisect’ module to 
determine if the integer value exists in the sorted list, and return True if it does. 
The function should otherwise return False. [4%] 
11) Time your functions from Q4 and Q9 on an appropriate range of input sizes 
(using your solutions to Q1 and Q9 to generate the inputs). Use the data you 
collect to draw graphs (using matplotlib) that compare the performance of your 
functions. [5%] 
12) Discuss in 100 words or less what your results show. You should consider the 
computational complexity of your functions. If you don’t manage to collect any 
data to discuss you should research and discuss what you would expect the 
results to show. [4%] 
 
Section 4 (40%) 
 
13) Write a function that takes a single integer, x, as an argument and outputs a 
Python set containing the divisors of x. E.g. If the input x were 20, then the output 
would be {1,2,4,5,10,20}. You should consider the efficiency of your solution. 
[10%] 
14) Write a function that takes a Python list of integers as an argument, and outputs 
the greatest common divisor (GCD) of all of the values in the list. You should use 
your function from Q13 to find the divisors of each value in the list and use 
appropriate set operations to find the GCD. E.g. If the input array were [20,15,45] 
the GCD would be 5 as it is the largest divisor the three values have in common. 
[8%] 
 
Questions continue onto next page  
INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTER SCIENCE 2024/2025 Masters Programmes 
 
15) Write a function that takes a Python list of integers and uses the built-in 
math.gcd() function to calculate the GCD of all of the values in the list. You 
should assume that the math.gcd() function will only take two arguments, e.g. 
math.gcd(12,4). You will likely need to loop through the input list using the gcd 
function multiple times. [8%] 
16) Time your functions from Q13, Q14 and Q15 on an appropriate range of input 
sizes (using your solution to Q1 to generate the inputs). Use the data you collect 
to draw graphs (using matplotlib) that compare the performance of your functions. 
[6%] 
17) Discuss in 200 words or less what your results show. You should consider the 
computational complexity of your functions. If you don’t manage to collect any 
data to discuss you should research and discuss what you would expect the 
results to show. [8%] 
 
Section 5 (10%) 
 
18) In 250 words or less, reflect on the taught content and the learning outcomes of 
this module and identify the three most important points that you will take into 
future modules. [10%] 
  
INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTER SCIENCE 2024/2025 Masters Programmes 
 
Examiners will stop reading once the word limit has been reached, and work beyond 
this point will not be assessed. Checks of word counts will be carried out on submitted 
work. Checks may take place manually and/or with the aid of the word count provided 
via an electronic submission. 
 
You should include any relevant references that you have used in writing your written 
answers, and these will not be included in the word count for the question. 
 
PLAGIARISM and COLLUSION 
Your assignment will be put through plagiarism detection services. 
Students suspected of plagiarism, either of published work or work from unpublished 
sources, including the work of other students, or of collusion, will be dealt with 
according to Computer Science and University guidelines. 

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