Daily Practice · GCSE Computer Science

August 1988 5-a-day

Every sheet in August 1988

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 1988A 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.
  2. 2nd August 1988Describe two negative consequences of throwing away old computer hardware instead of recycling it.
  3. 3rd August 1988Write a function called isEven that takes one integer parameter, num, and returns True if num is even and False otherwise.
  4. 4th August 1988State the key difference between a procedure and a function.
  5. 5th August 1988A 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.
  6. 6th August 1988Define the term protocol.
  7. 7th August 1988Explain why iterative testing, carried out throughout development, tends to make errors cheaper to fix than relying only on final testing.
  8. 8th August 1988Give one advantage of a relational database over a flat-file database.
  9. 9th August 1988Define the term 'interrupt' as used to describe a signal received by a CPU.
  10. 10th August 1988An 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.
  11. 11th August 1988Evaluate X = NOT A AND B when A = 0 and B = 1.
  12. 12th August 1988Convert the hexadecimal number 3F to denary.
  13. 13th August 1988Give one advantage of a star topology compared with a mesh topology.
  14. 14th August 1988Explain the purpose of a breakpoint.
  15. 15th August 1988Add the 8-bit binary numbers 00101101 and 00010011, giving your answer as an 8-bit binary number.
  16. 16th August 1988State the three stages of the fetch-decode-execute cycle in the order they occur.
  17. 17th August 1988State one weakness of a simple shift cipher compared to modern encryption methods used on networks.
  18. 18th August 1988Explain why a running maximum should be initialised to the first element of the array rather than to 0.
  19. 19th August 1988Define the term 'pixel'.
  20. 20th August 1988Order these from fastest access speed to slowest: RAM, cache, registers, secondary storage.
  21. 21st August 1988Which piece of UK legislation makes it a criminal offence to gain unauthorised access to a computer system?
  22. 22nd August 1988Evaluate the expression 23 DIV 4.
  23. 23rd August 1988A 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.
  24. 24th August 1988A 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.
  25. 25th August 1988Name the four layers of the TCP/IP model in order from the one closest to the user.
  26. 26th August 1988A 'quantity' field on a website must only accept whole numbers from 1 to 10. Which validation check identifies that 15 has been entered?
  27. 27th August 1988A table called bookings has fields bookingId, customerName and eventDate. Write an SQL statement that deletes the booking with bookingId 45.
  28. 28th August 1988A row of 8 pixels is WWWBBBWW. Use run-length encoding to encode this row as pairs of (colour, run length).
  29. 29th August 1988An array contains [9, 2, 6], to be sorted using insertion sort. Show the state of the array after each new element has been inserted into its correct position.
  30. 30th August 1988Complete: NOT 0 = ?
  31. 31st August 1988Convert the denary number 39 to an 8-bit binary number, showing your working.