The exam emphasizes algorithmic reasoning, programming, and data management in computer science. Key tasks involve completing state transition diagrams for security systems, hand-tracing sorting algorithms, and implementing pseudocode for number factorization. Programming tasks include enhancing a skeleton program by adding validation for line number editing, creating insertion and deletion routines for source code lines, and modifying opcode functionality. Topics include global versus local variables, data structure operations, subroutine modifications, and error code analysis. Boolean operations, abstraction principles, and exception handling are integrated with debugging and user interaction to reinforce problem-solving and coding proficiency.