Daily Practice · GCSE Computer Science

April 1962 5-a-day

Every sheet in April 1962

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

  1. 1st April 1962Convert the denary number 5 to a 4-bit binary number.
  2. 2nd April 1962A CPU has a clock speed of 4.0 GHz. Calculate how many clock cycles it completes in 2 seconds.
  3. 3rd April 1962A 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.
  4. 4th April 1962Trace this algorithm with data = [4, 9, 2, 9, 7] and state the final output. total = 0; count = 0; for i = 0 to 4: if data[i] > 5 then total = total + data[i] and count = count + 1; next i; print(total, count).
  5. 5th April 1962A mono sound clip has a sample rate of 4000 Hz and lasts 2 seconds. Calculate the total number of samples taken.
  6. 6th April 1962State the type of program that is typically stored in ROM.
  7. 7th April 1962State one reason a small business might choose to use open source software instead of proprietary (closed source) software.
  8. 8th April 1962A FOR loop runs: total = 0, FOR i = 1 TO 4, total = total + i, NEXT i. State the value of total after the loop finishes.
  9. 9th April 1962Write 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.
  10. 10th April 1962State the typical maximum capacity of a single-layer DVD.
  11. 11th April 1962Explain the role of TCP when a large file is downloaded.
  12. 12th April 1962State what is meant by a syntax error.
  13. 13th April 1962State what a foreign key is used for.
  14. 14th April 1962What type of utility software reorganises files on a hard disk so fragmented parts are stored closer together?
  15. 15th April 1962Calculate the maximum number of comparisons required by a binary search on a sorted list of 512 items.
  16. 16th April 1962Given P = 0 and Q = 1, state the value of P OR Q.
  17. 17th April 1962A 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.
  18. 18th April 1962A 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.
  19. 19th April 1962Give one advantage and one disadvantage of using a compiler.
  20. 20th April 1962Convert the 4-bit binary number 1101 to denary.
  21. 21st April 1962Two 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.
  22. 22nd April 1962State why an organisation might employ penetration testers to test its network.
  23. 23rd April 1962Write a loop in pseudocode that outputs every element of a 1D array named names of length 6.
  24. 24th April 1962State one example of a file format that commonly uses lossy compression.
  25. 25th April 1962State how many bits are in one byte, and how many bytes are in one kibibyte (KiB).
  26. 26th April 1962State whether the source code of proprietary (closed source) software is normally available for the public to view.
  27. 27th April 1962Write one line of pseudocode that converts the string stored in heightInput into a real number and stores it in a variable called height.
  28. 28th April 1962State the value returned by LENGTH(word) if word stores the string 'Computer'.
  29. 29th April 1962Order these units of data from smallest to largest: megabyte, byte, gigabyte, kilobyte.
  30. 30th April 1962A 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?