سوال ۲۴ کنکور ارشد علوم کامپیوتر ۱۴۰۵

PASSAGE 3

Computer science is unique among the sciences in the types of models it creates. In seeking explanations, science often constructs models to test hypotheses for explaining phenomena. These models, in the form of experimental apparatus, are of course physical objects. The models built and manipulated in computer science, however, are not physical at all. Computer science is a science concerned with the study of computational processes. A computational process is distinguished from, say, a chemical or electrical process, in that it is studied “in ways that ignore its physical nature” (Hailperin et al. 1999: 3). For example, the process by which a card player arranges cards in her hand, and the process by which a computer sorts names in a customer list, though they share nothing in common physically, may nevertheless embody the same computational process.

This process (known as an insertion sort in computer science terms) can be precisely described in a formal language without talking about playing cards or semiconducting elements. When so described, one has a computational model of the process in the form of a computer program. This model can be tested, in a way analogous to how a hypothesis is tested in the natural sciences, by executing the program and observing its behavior. It can also be reasoned about abstractly, so that questions can be answered about it, such as whether there are other processes which will have the same effect but achieve it more efficiently. Building computational models and answering these kinds of questions form a large part of what computer scientists do.

Question 24 — Which of the following words best describes the author’s overall tone in the passage?