IB Computer Science HL & SL – Study Notes by Topic

Computer Fundamentals

CPU structure, GPUs, pipelining, memory, fetch-decode-execute cycle, SaaS/PaaS, binary & hexadecimal number systems; logic gates, truth tables, circuit diagrams; operating systems & resource management, control systems, compilers/interpreters

Networks

Devices, client/server peer, topologies, protocols (tcp/ip, ip4/ip6, http, dns), switching, routing, security vulnerabilities & countermeasures, encryption & certificates

Databases

Schema, relational databases, ERD, 1NF/2NF/3NF, SQL including joins, update/insert, aggregate functions, views, transactions, data warehousing

Machine Learning

Hardware, types of ML, preprocessing, linear regression, classification, hyper-parameters, unsupervised clustering, association rule, reinforcement learning, genetic algorithms, ANNs, CNNs, ethical challenges

Computational Thinking

Abstraction, algorithm design, decomposition, pattern recognition, trace flowcharts

Programming

Data types and their operations, selection, iteration, functions, static/dynamic structures, arrays/lists, stacks, queues, big O, sorting algorithms, recursion, file processing

Object Oriented Programming

Classes/objects, constructors, static/non-static, encapsulation, inheritance, polymorphism, abstract classes, composition/aggregation, design patterns

Abstract data structures

Linked lists (singular, double, circular), binary search trees, hash-maps, sets