VCE Algorithmics (HESS) case studies
VCE Algorithmics (HESS) · Put your knowledge to work in context.
VCE Algorithmics (HESS) is a Victorian Certificate of Education study accredited from 2023, covering Units 3 and 4 and assessed through a school-assessed task plus an external written examination. It suits students who enjoy abstract reasoning about computation: designing algorithms, justifying correctness, and analysing efficiency rather than simply writing code. Because the study sits under the Higher Education Scored Study (HESS) arrangement, it rewards mathematical maturity and sustained written argument. The examination page lists a written examination and a sample multiple-choice answer sheet, and the examination specifications are at Version 3, March 2025. The VCE Algorithmics (HESS) case studies are 5 cases and about 3,961 words.
1Scheduling a Volunteer Roster with Conflicting Constraints
A community kitchen must staff 14 shifts across 7 days (two shifts per day: morning and evening). There are 9 volunteers.
818 words, about 4 min2Choosing a Sorting Strategy for Streaming Sensor Data
A weather station logs 2,000,000 temperature readings per day. Each reading is a 64-bit float with a timestamp.
731 words, about 4 min3Dijkstra Fails on a Graph with a Negative Edge
A delivery company models its road network as a directed graph. Nodes are depots and customers; edge weights are travel times in minutes.
814 words, about 4 min4Hashing Collisions in a Student Records System
A school stores 10,000 student records in a hash table with 10,000 buckets, using the hash function h(key) = key mod 10,000 where key is the student ID (a 6-digit number). Collisions are resolved by linear probing (check the next bucket, wrapping around).
759 words, about 4 min5Dynamic Programming versus Greedy for a Coin Change Till
A shop till must give change for any amount from 1 to 99 cents using the fewest coins. The available denominations are 1, 5, 10, and 25 cents.
839 words, about 4 min