Daily Practice · GCSE Computer Science

August 1973 5-a-day

Every sheet in August 1973

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 1973Calculate the number of cables needed to connect 8 computers in a full mesh topology, where every computer connects directly to every other computer.
  2. 2nd August 1973Give one advantage and one disadvantage of using a compiler.
  3. 3rd August 1973Convert the hexadecimal number 1A to denary.
  4. 4th August 1973Convert the denary number 156 to an 8 bit binary number.
  5. 5th August 1973Which type of malware can replicate itself and spread across a network without attaching to another program or needing a user to run it?
  6. 6th August 1973Write a loop in pseudocode that outputs every element of a 1D array named names of length 6.
  7. 7th August 1973An image uses a colour depth of 2 bits per pixel. Calculate the maximum number of different colours it can represent.
  8. 8th August 1973A 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.
  9. 9th August 1973Describe two negative consequences of throwing away old computer hardware instead of recycling it.
  10. 10th August 1973Write a function called isEven that takes one integer parameter, num, and returns True if num is even and False otherwise.
  11. 11th August 1973State the key difference between a procedure and a function.
  12. 12th August 1973A 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.
  13. 13th August 1973A 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?
  14. 14th August 1973Explain why iterative testing, carried out throughout development, tends to make errors cheaper to fix than relying only on final testing.
  15. 15th August 1973Give one advantage of a relational database over a flat-file database.
  16. 16th August 1973Define the term 'interrupt' as used to describe a signal received by a CPU.
  17. 17th August 1973An 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.
  18. 18th August 1973Evaluate X = NOT A AND B when A = 0 and B = 1.
  19. 19th August 1973Convert the hexadecimal number 3F to denary.
  20. 20th August 1973Give one advantage of a star topology compared with a mesh topology.
  21. 21st August 1973Name the translator used for assembly language and describe how it differs from a compiler.
  22. 22nd August 1973Add the 8-bit binary numbers 00101101 and 00010011, giving your answer as an 8-bit binary number.
  23. 23rd August 1973State the three stages of the fetch-decode-execute cycle in the order they occur.
  24. 24th August 1973State one weakness of a simple shift cipher compared to modern encryption methods used on networks.
  25. 25th August 1973Explain what happens if a program tries to read index 5 of an array declared with 5 elements.
  26. 26th August 1973Define the term 'pixel'.
  27. 27th August 1973Order these from fastest access speed to slowest: RAM, cache, registers, secondary storage.
  28. 28th August 1973Which piece of UK legislation makes it a criminal offence to gain unauthorised access to a computer system?
  29. 29th August 1973Evaluate the expression 23 DIV 4.
  30. 30th August 1973A programmer wants any syntax error in their program to be reported before the program starts running at all. State whether a compiler or an interpreter behaves this way, and explain why.
  31. 31st August 1973A 1 TB hard disk drive costs 40 pounds. A 500 GB solid-state drive costs 60 pounds. Calculate the cost per gigabyte of each device, and state which is cheaper per GB. Use 1 TB = 1000 GB.