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Ph.D. Qualifiers Study Guide

Subset of the ACM Curriculum used for the ICS Ph.D. Qualifying Examination


Following graduate division guidelines, the ICS Ph.D. Qualifying Examination is given in the first semester of a student's residency in the Ph.D. portion of his or her studies. Its purpose is to assess students' preparation in Computer Science and to identify any deficiencies that should be addressed with further study.

A student should be able to pass this exam based on their Masters level study in computer science. In order to provide guidance to students who elect to study for this exam, we have identified the areas of coverage in terms of the ACM curriculum (details are in the ACM CC2001 report), although the test will be given at the graduate level. The ACM curriculum is used as a convenient and nationally known reference framework.

  • DS. Discrete Structures
    • DS1. Functions, relations, and sets
    • DS2. Basic logic
    • DS3. Proof techniques
    • DS4. Basics of counting
    • DS5. Graphs and trees
    • DS6. Discrete probability
    • DS7. Matrix algebra
  • PF. Programming Fundamentals
    • PF1. Fundamental programming constructs
    • PF2. Algorithms and problem-solving
    • PF3. Fundamental data structure
    • PF4. Recursion
  • AL. Algorithms and Complexity
    • AL1. Basic algorithmic analysis
    • AL2. Algorithmic strategies
    • AL3. Fundamental computing algorithms
    • AL5. Basic computability
    • AL6. The complexity classes P and NP
    • AL7. Automata theory
  • AR. Architecture and Organization
    • AR1. Digital logic and digital systems
    • AR2. Machine level representation of data
    • AR3. Assembly level machine organization
    • AR4. Memory system organization and architecture
  • OS. Operating Systems
    • OS1. Overview of operating systems
    • OS2. Operating system principles
    • OS3. Concurrency
    • OS4. Scheduling and dispatch
    • OS5. Memory management
  • NC. Net-Centric Computing
    • NC1. Introduction for net-centric computing
    • NC2. Communication and networking
    • NC3. Network security
    • NC7. Compression and decompression
  • PL. Programming Languages
    • PL1. Overview of programming languages
    • PL4. Declarations and types
    • PL5. Abstraction mechanisms
    • PL6. Object-oriented programming
    • PL7. Functional programming
    • PL8. Language translation systems
  • IM. Information Management
    • IM1. Information models and systems
    • IM2. Database systems
    • IM3. Data modeling
    • IM4. Relational databases
    • IM5. Database query languages
    • IM6. Relational database design
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