Daily Practice · GCSE Computer Science

May 1971 5-a-day

Every sheet in May 1971

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

  1. 1st May 1971State what is meant by a syntax error.
  2. 2nd May 1971Define the term 'primary key' as used in a database table.
  3. 3rd May 1971What type of utility software reorganises files on a hard disk so fragmented parts are stored closer together?
  4. 4th May 1971Calculate the maximum number of comparisons required by a binary search on a sorted list of 512 items.
  5. 5th May 1971Given P = 0 and Q = 1, state the value of P OR Q.
  6. 6th May 1971Convert the 8-bit binary number 10110100 directly to hexadecimal by splitting it into nibbles.
  7. 7th May 1971A 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.
  8. 8th May 1971Describe what syntax highlighting is and how it helps a programmer.
  9. 9th May 1971Convert the 4-bit binary number 1101 to denary.
  10. 10th May 1971Two 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.
  11. 11th May 1971State why an organisation might employ penetration testers to test its network.
  12. 12th May 1971Trace 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).
  13. 13th May 1971State one example of a file format that commonly uses lossy compression.
  14. 14th May 1971State how many bits are in one byte, and how many bytes are in one kibibyte (KiB).
  15. 15th May 1971State whether the source code of proprietary (closed source) software is normally available for the public to view.
  16. 16th May 1971Write one line of pseudocode that converts the string stored in heightInput into a real number and stores it in a variable called height.
  17. 17th May 1971A function is defined as: FUNCTION addTax(price) RETURN price x 1.2 ENDFUNCTION. Another line of code runs: total <- addTax(20) + addTax(30). Trace both function calls and state the final value of total.
  18. 18th May 1971Order these units of data from smallest to largest: megabyte, byte, gigabyte, kilobyte.
  19. 19th May 1971Explain the role of TCP when a large file is downloaded.
  20. 20th May 1971Give one example of erroneous test data for a field that only accepts whole numbers from 1 to 10.
  21. 21st May 1971A table called staff has fields staffId, name, department and salary, storing these records: staffId | name | department | salary, 1 | Ben | Sales | 24000, 2 | Chloe | IT | 31000, 3 | Dan | Sales | 27000. State which staffId(s) would be returned by: SELECT staffId FROM staff WHERE department = 'Sales' AND salary > 25000;
  22. 22nd May 1971Each 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.
  23. 23rd May 1971Which flowchart symbol shape is used to represent a decision point (e.g. a yes/no branch)?
  24. 24th May 1971State the two values a Boolean data type can hold.
  25. 25th May 1971Convert the 8-bit binary number 01011010 to denary.
  26. 26th May 1971Calculate the number of cables needed to connect 8 computers in a full mesh topology, where every computer connects directly to every other computer.
  27. 27th May 1971Give one advantage and one disadvantage of using a compiler.
  28. 28th May 1971Convert the hexadecimal number 1A to denary.
  29. 29th May 1971Convert the denary number 156 to an 8 bit binary number.
  30. 30th May 1971Which type of malware can replicate itself and spread across a network without attaching to another program or needing a user to run it?
  31. 31st May 1971Write a loop in pseudocode that outputs every element of a 1D array named names of length 6.