Daily Practice · GCSE Computer Science

October 1959 5-a-day

Every sheet in October 1959

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

  1. 1st October 1959Give one advantage and one disadvantage of using a compiler.
  2. 2nd October 1959Convert the denary number 5 to a 4-bit binary number.
  3. 3rd October 1959A CPU has a clock speed of 4.0 GHz. Calculate how many clock cycles it completes in 2 seconds.
  4. 4th October 1959A simple cipher shifts every letter 2 places forward in the alphabet, wrapping around so Y becomes A and Z becomes B. Encrypt the plaintext CAT using this cipher.
  5. 5th October 1959Write a loop in pseudocode that outputs every element of a 1D array named names of length 6.
  6. 6th October 1959A mono sound clip has a sample rate of 4000 Hz and lasts 2 seconds. Calculate the total number of samples taken.
  7. 7th October 1959State the type of program that is typically stored in ROM.
  8. 8th October 1959State one reason a small business might choose to use open source software instead of proprietary (closed source) software.
  9. 9th October 1959A FOR loop runs: total = 0, FOR i = 1 TO 4, total = total + i, NEXT i. State the value of total after the loop finishes.
  10. 10th October 1959Write 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.
  11. 11th October 1959State the typical maximum capacity of a single-layer DVD.
  12. 12th October 1959A user reads the same email on a phone and a tablet, and deleting it on one deletes it on the other. Which protocol is in use and why?
  13. 13th October 1959State what is meant by a syntax error.
  14. 14th October 1959State what a foreign key is used for.
  15. 15th October 1959What type of utility software reorganises files on a hard disk so fragmented parts are stored closer together?
  16. 16th October 1959Calculate the maximum number of comparisons required by a binary search on a sorted list of 512 items.
  17. 17th October 1959Given P = 0 and Q = 1, state the value of P OR Q.
  18. 18th October 1959A 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.
  19. 19th October 1959A network administrator is connecting 10 computers in a server room. Calculate the number of cables needed for a full mesh topology, and state the number needed for a star topology with one central switch.
  20. 20th October 1959Name the translator used for assembly language and describe how it differs from a compiler.
  21. 21st October 1959Convert the 4-bit binary number 1101 to denary.
  22. 22nd October 1959Two CPUs are compared for a task optimised for multiple cores: CPU A has 2 cores at 4.2 GHz; CPU B has 6 cores at 3.0 GHz. Explain which CPU is likely to perform better for this task.
  23. 23rd October 1959State why an organisation might employ penetration testers to test its network.
  24. 24th October 1959Explain what happens if a program tries to read index 5 of an array declared with 5 elements.
  25. 25th October 1959State one example of a file format that commonly uses lossy compression.
  26. 26th October 1959State how many bits are in one byte, and how many bytes are in one kibibyte (KiB).
  27. 27th October 1959State whether the source code of proprietary (closed source) software is normally available for the public to view.
  28. 28th October 1959Write one line of pseudocode that converts the string stored in heightInput into a real number and stores it in a variable called height.
  29. 29th October 1959State the value returned by LENGTH(word) if word stores the string 'Computer'.
  30. 30th October 1959Order these units of data from smallest to largest: megabyte, byte, gigabyte, kilobyte.
  31. 31st October 1959Define the term protocol.