HKDSE SBA 2025 Algorithm and Programming

CARMEL SECONDARY SCHOOL 
HKDSE SBA 2025 
(Adopted from HKEAA) 
 
Option C (Algorithm and Programming) 
 
Inter-School Chinese Debate Competition 
 
An inter-school Chinese Debate competition will take place using a knockout system, where the loser of each 
match is eliminated and the winner continues to compete for the award. Each school can enter at most two teams 
in the competition. The semi-finalists (the best four teams) in the previous year’s competition will be treated as 
seed teams. Where possible, they will not be scheduled to play against each other under semi-final 
 
If the number of participating teams is not a power of 2, ‘byes’ are used to move certain participants to the next 
round automatically. 
 
A sample competition chart for the competition is shown below: 
 
* Seed teams 
 
 
A proper competition chart should 
 
l separate teams from the same school, where possible, 
l separate seed teams, where possible, and 
l balance the number of ‘byes’ in the chart such that a ‘bye’ occurs in the first round only. 
 
Champion
Team A1 
(School A) *
(bye)
Team D1 
(School D)
Team B2 
(School B)
Team B1 
(School B)
(bye)
Team C1 
(School C) *
Team A2
(School A)CARMEL SECONDARY SCHOOL 
HKDSE SBA 2025 
(Adopted from HKEAA) 
4 
 
Task 1 (Design & Implementation) 
 
Write a program to produce the competition chart. 
 
You may want to consider some of the following key factors when designing the program: 
 
l selection of data types and data structures 
l variable/constant declaration and initialisation 
l modular approach 
l scope of variables and parameters passing 
l program interface 
l data collection, input and validation 
l data processing 
l sorting and searching algorithms 
l program output 
l error handling 
l reusability and portability 
 
Create a presentation and/or documents to briefly describe the components involved in designing the program. 
 
Task 2 (Testing & Evaluation) 
 
Referring to the program (Alternative: Using a program stipulated by your teacher), complete the following tasks. 
 
Conduct a test of the program. Collect and record the feedback and results of the test. 
 Either (i) make one major change in the program and illustrate the corresponding improvement, 
 or (ii) describe how the scope of the program could be extended. 
 
Create a presentation and/or documents to illustrate the development of the program. You may want to consider 
some of the following: 
 
l pros and cons of the program design 
l test data and test cases 
l unit test 
l system test 
l user acceptance test 
l debugging 
l algorithm optimisation