Daily Practice · GCSE Computer Science

August 1963 5-a-day

Every sheet in August 1963

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

  1. 1st August 1963A table called books has fields bookId, title, authorId and copiesAvailable. Write an SQL statement that selects the title of every book with more than 2 copies available.
  2. 2nd August 1963Each pair from the previous question is stored using 2 bytes. Calculate the compression ratio achieved, given the uncompressed row (1 byte per pixel) uses 8 bytes.
  3. 3rd August 1963Which flowchart symbol shape is used to represent a decision point (e.g. a yes/no branch)?
  4. 4th August 1963State the two values a Boolean data type can hold.
  5. 5th August 1963State how many different values can be represented using 5 bits, and explain your reasoning.
  6. 6th August 1963Calculate the number of cables needed to connect 8 computers in a full mesh topology, where every computer connects directly to every other computer.
  7. 7th August 1963State why a program written in a high level language must be translated.
  8. 8th August 1963Convert the hexadecimal number 1A to denary.
  9. 9th August 1963Convert the denary number 156 to an 8 bit binary number.
  10. 10th August 1963Which type of malware can replicate itself and spread across a network without attaching to another program or needing a user to run it?
  11. 11th August 1963Describe what a nested loop does when it processes a 2D array.
  12. 12th August 1963An image uses a colour depth of 2 bits per pixel. Calculate the maximum number of different colours it can represent.
  13. 13th August 1963A 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.
  14. 14th August 1963Describe two negative consequences of throwing away old computer hardware instead of recycling it.
  15. 15th August 1963Write a function called isEven that takes one integer parameter, num, and returns True if num is even and False otherwise.
  16. 16th August 1963State the key difference between a procedure and a function.
  17. 17th August 1963A 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.
  18. 18th August 1963Give two reasons why network communication is divided into layers.
  19. 19th August 1963Explain why iterative testing, carried out throughout development, tends to make errors cheaper to fix than relying only on final testing.
  20. 20th August 1963Give one advantage of a relational database over a flat-file database.
  21. 21st August 1963Define the term 'interrupt' as used to describe a signal received by a CPU.
  22. 22nd August 1963An 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.
  23. 23rd August 1963Evaluate X = NOT A AND B when A = 0 and B = 1.
  24. 24th August 1963Convert the hexadecimal number 3F to denary.
  25. 25th August 1963Give one advantage of a star topology compared with a mesh topology.
  26. 26th August 1963Explain why an interpreter is often preferred while a program is being written.
  27. 27th August 1963Add the 8-bit binary numbers 00101101 and 00010011, giving your answer as an 8-bit binary number.
  28. 28th August 1963State the three stages of the fetch-decode-execute cycle in the order they occur.
  29. 29th August 1963State one weakness of a simple shift cipher compared to modern encryption methods used on networks.
  30. 30th August 1963A 2D array grid is declared as grid[4][6]. State how many rows and columns it has and how many elements it holds in total.
  31. 31st August 1963Define the term 'pixel'.