Daily Practice · GCSE Computer Science

March 1955 5-a-day

Every sheet in March 1955

The same date always regenerates the same five questions, so a sheet you print today is the sheet a classmate prints tomorrow.

  1. 1st March 1955State the two values a Boolean data type can hold.
  2. 2nd March 1955Convert the 8-bit binary number 01011010 to denary.
  3. 3rd March 1955Calculate the number of cables needed to connect 8 computers in a full mesh topology, where every computer connects directly to every other computer.
  4. 4th March 1955A program compiles and runs but always outputs an average that is too small. State the type of error and explain why the translator did not report it.
  5. 5th March 1955Convert the hexadecimal number 1A to denary.
  6. 6th March 1955Convert the denary number 156 to an 8 bit binary number.
  7. 7th March 1955Which type of malware can replicate itself and spread across a network without attaching to another program or needing a user to run it?
  8. 8th March 1955An array named temps holds 12 values. State the index of the first item and the index of the last item.
  9. 9th March 1955An image uses a colour depth of 2 bits per pixel. Calculate the maximum number of different colours it can represent.
  10. 10th March 1955A CPU's cache has a hit rate of 80%. During a task the CPU makes 4000 requests for data. Calculate the number of cache hits and cache misses.
  11. 11th March 1955Describe two negative consequences of throwing away old computer hardware instead of recycling it.
  12. 12th March 1955Write a function called isEven that takes one integer parameter, num, and returns True if num is even and False otherwise.
  13. 13th March 1955Write the pseudocode header and body for a function called isAdult that takes one integer parameter called age and returns True if age is 18 or over.
  14. 14th March 1955A company backs up its files onto magnetic tape cartridges, each with a capacity of 3 TB. The company needs to back up 20 TB of data. Calculate the minimum number of cartridges needed.
  15. 15th March 1955State the difference between HTTP and HTTPS, and give one situation where HTTPS is essential.
  16. 16th March 1955Explain why iterative testing, carried out throughout development, tends to make errors cheaper to fix than relying only on final testing.
  17. 17th March 1955State what a foreign key is used for.
  18. 18th March 1955Define the term 'interrupt' as used to describe a signal received by a CPU.
  19. 19th March 1955An array called items contains [12, 45, 7, 30, 19] at indices 0 to 4. Describe how a linear search would locate the value 30, stating the number of comparisons needed.
  20. 20th March 1955Evaluate X = NOT A AND B when A = 0 and B = 1.
  21. 21st March 1955A pseudocode algorithm is: count <- 0, x <- 10, WHILE x > 0, count <- count + 1, x <- x - 3, ENDWHILE, OUTPUT count. Complete a trace table for x and count, laid out as x | count, then state the value output.
  22. 22nd March 1955Give one advantage of a star topology compared with a mesh topology.
  23. 23rd March 1955State why a program written in a high level language must be translated.
  24. 24th March 1955Add the 8-bit binary numbers 00101101 and 00010011, giving your answer as an 8-bit binary number.
  25. 25th March 1955State the three stages of the fetch-decode-execute cycle in the order they occur.
  26. 26th March 1955State one weakness of a simple shift cipher compared to modern encryption methods used on networks.
  27. 27th March 1955Describe what a nested loop does when it processes a 2D array.
  28. 28th March 1955Define the term 'pixel'.
  29. 29th March 1955Order these from fastest access speed to slowest: RAM, cache, registers, secondary storage.
  30. 30th March 1955Which piece of UK legislation makes it a criminal offence to gain unauthorised access to a computer system?
  31. 31st March 1955Evaluate the expression 23 DIV 4.