Daily Practice · GCSE Computer Science

January 1982 5-a-day

Every sheet in January 1982

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

  1. 1st January 1982Which flowchart symbol shape is used to represent a decision point (e.g. a yes/no branch)?
  2. 2nd January 1982State the two values a Boolean data type can hold.
  3. 3rd January 1982Convert the denary number 39 to an 8-bit binary number, showing your working.
  4. 4th January 1982Calculate the number of cables needed to connect 8 computers in a full mesh topology, where every computer connects directly to every other computer.
  5. 5th January 1982Name the translator used for assembly language and describe how it differs from a compiler.
  6. 6th January 1982Convert the hexadecimal number 1A to denary.
  7. 7th January 1982Convert the denary number 156 to an 8 bit binary number.
  8. 8th January 1982Which type of malware can replicate itself and spread across a network without attaching to another program or needing a user to run it?
  9. 9th January 1982Explain what happens if a program tries to read index 5 of an array declared with 5 elements.
  10. 10th January 1982An image uses a colour depth of 2 bits per pixel. Calculate the maximum number of different colours it can represent.
  11. 11th January 1982A 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.
  12. 12th January 1982Describe two negative consequences of throwing away old computer hardware instead of recycling it.
  13. 13th January 1982Write a function called isEven that takes one integer parameter, num, and returns True if num is even and False otherwise.
  14. 14th January 1982Give one specific way this code could be refined without changing what it does: a = 5, b = 3, c = a + b, PRINT c
  15. 15th January 1982A 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.
  16. 16th January 1982Define the term protocol.
  17. 17th January 1982Explain why iterative testing, carried out throughout development, tends to make errors cheaper to fix than relying only on final testing.
  18. 18th January 1982A table called members has fields memberId, firstName, lastName and joinYear. Write an SQL statement that adds a new record with memberId 12, firstName 'Priya', lastName 'Shah' and joinYear 2026.
  19. 19th January 1982Define the term 'interrupt' as used to describe a signal received by a CPU.
  20. 20th January 1982An 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.
  21. 21st January 1982Evaluate X = NOT A AND B when A = 0 and B = 1.
  22. 22nd January 1982Convert the hexadecimal number FF to an 8-bit binary number.
  23. 23rd January 1982Give one advantage of a star topology compared with a mesh topology.
  24. 24th January 1982Explain the purpose of a breakpoint.
  25. 25th January 1982Add the 8-bit binary numbers 00101101 and 00010011, giving your answer as an 8-bit binary number.
  26. 26th January 1982State the three stages of the fetch-decode-execute cycle in the order they occur.
  27. 27th January 1982State one weakness of a simple shift cipher compared to modern encryption methods used on networks.
  28. 28th January 1982Explain why a running maximum should be initialised to the first element of the array rather than to 0.
  29. 29th January 1982Define the term 'pixel'.
  30. 30th January 1982Order these from fastest access speed to slowest: RAM, cache, registers, secondary storage.
  31. 31st January 1982Which piece of UK legislation makes it a criminal offence to gain unauthorised access to a computer system?