- Often, students can explain these entities abstractly without much trouble.
- Unfortunately, when they go on to write a program, student may try every combination of references and dereferences (& and *), no matter how unnecessary or incorrect.
- It is normal for students to understand "&" at some stages and then not understand it for a while.
- Give students a graduated sequence of exercises to help them build confidence and competence in this area. One example of such lab exercises may be found here.