Daily Practice · GCSE Computer Science

July 1984 5-a-day

Every sheet in July 1984

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

  1. 1st July 1984Which flowchart symbol shape is used to represent a decision point (e.g. a yes/no branch)?
  2. 2nd July 1984State the two values a Boolean data type can hold.
  3. 3rd July 1984Convert the denary number 39 to an 8-bit binary number, showing your working.
  4. 4th July 1984Calculate 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 July 1984Give one advantage and one disadvantage of using a compiler.
  6. 6th July 1984Convert the hexadecimal number 1A to denary.
  7. 7th July 1984Convert the denary number 156 to an 8 bit binary number.
  8. 8th July 1984Which 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 July 1984Write a loop in pseudocode that outputs every element of a 1D array named names of length 6.
  10. 10th July 1984An image uses a colour depth of 2 bits per pixel. Calculate the maximum number of different colours it can represent.
  11. 11th July 1984A 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 July 1984Describe two negative consequences of throwing away old computer hardware instead of recycling it.
  13. 13th July 1984Write a function called isEven that takes one integer parameter, num, and returns True if num is even and False otherwise.
  14. 14th July 1984Give one specific way this code could be refined without changing what it does: a = 5, b = 3, c = a + b, PRINT c
  15. 15th July 1984A 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 July 1984A 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?
  17. 17th July 1984Explain why iterative testing, carried out throughout development, tends to make errors cheaper to fix than relying only on final testing.
  18. 18th July 1984A 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 July 1984Define the term 'interrupt' as used to describe a signal received by a CPU.
  20. 20th July 1984An 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 July 1984Evaluate X = NOT A AND B when A = 0 and B = 1.
  22. 22nd July 1984Convert the hexadecimal number FF to an 8-bit binary number.
  23. 23rd July 1984Give one advantage of a star topology compared with a mesh topology.
  24. 24th July 1984Name the translator used for assembly language and describe how it differs from a compiler.
  25. 25th July 1984Add the 8-bit binary numbers 00101101 and 00010011, giving your answer as an 8-bit binary number.
  26. 26th July 1984State the three stages of the fetch-decode-execute cycle in the order they occur.
  27. 27th July 1984State one weakness of a simple shift cipher compared to modern encryption methods used on networks.
  28. 28th July 1984Explain what happens if a program tries to read index 5 of an array declared with 5 elements.
  29. 29th July 1984Define the term 'pixel'.
  30. 30th July 1984Order these from fastest access speed to slowest: RAM, cache, registers, secondary storage.
  31. 31st July 1984Which piece of UK legislation makes it a criminal offence to gain unauthorised access to a computer system?