CSC 1001 — Lab 5: The Ticket Price Problem

Intro

This is a lighter lab for midterm week. You'll trace a short piece of code on your own, then work individually through one problem from requirements to working code, and finish by comparing your work with a small group. No new syntax is introduced this week — everything here reuses conditionals and Boolean logic from the last few weeks.

Submit: your Lab 5 Worksheet. There is no code and no notebook to submit this week.

Understand (Individual)

Trace the code

Below is a function with two separate decision structures. Without running it, trace through it by hand for each call listed, and record your trace on your Lab 5 Worksheet.

age: int = 0
hasPass: bool = True

if age < 5:
    price = 0
elif age < 13:
    price = 6
elif age >= 65:
    price = 7
else:
    price = 10

  if hasPass and price > 0:
     price = price - 3
  elif hasPass:
        price = price

print(price)

Calls to trace:

• age is 8, has pass
• age is 70, no pass
• age is 4, has pass

Do (Individual)

The Ticket Price problem

Read the scenario below, then work through each step in order. Don't skip to the code — the requirements and pseudocode are what make the code make sense.

Scenario: Sunset Cinema Ticket Price

Sunset Cinema wants a simple tool that calculates the price of one ticket.

• The standard adult ticket is $12.
• Children under age 13 pay $8.
• Seniors age 65 and older pay $9.
• Every Tuesday, the cinema takes $3 off the ticket price to bring in more customers — but a ticket should never cost less than $5.
• Customers with a valid student ID get an additional $2 off, applied after the Tuesday discount. This discount also cannot bring the price below $5.

The program should take a customer's age, whether today is Tuesday, and whether they have a student ID, and output the final ticket price.

Step 1 — Requirements

List the inputs, the output, and the business rules in your own words on your Lab 5 Worksheet.

Step 2 — Subtasks

Break the problem into a short sequence of steps (not code yet — just the order of operations). Record your steps on your worksheet.

Step 3 — Pseudocode

Write pseudocode for the full problem on your worksheet. Use IF / ELIF / ELSE and be explicit about the $5 floor on both discounts.

Step 4 — Construct the code

Below are lines of a Python solution, shuffled and labeled. Two of the lines are wrong on purpose. On your worksheet, write the letters, in order, for only the lines that belong in a correct solution (skip the incorrect ones), and identify what's wrong with the two incorrect lines.

age: int = 5
isTuesday: bool = True
hasStudentId: bool = True

A    if age < 13:
B    elif age > 65:
C    elif age >= 65:
D        price: int = 8
E        price: int = 9
F    else:
G        price: int = 12
H    if isTuesday:
I        price: int = price + 3
J        price: int = price - 3
K        if price < 5:
L            price: int = 5
M    if hasStudentId:
N        price: int = price - 2
O        if price < 5:
P            price: int = 5

Q    print(price)

Communicate (Groups of 3–4)

Compare and agree

Form a group. Each person should have already completed the Do section individually. Go through the comparison below together.

As a group, agree on one final version and record it on your Lab 5 Worksheet (final pseudocode, final code order, and names in your group).