Daily Practice · GCSE Computer Science
September 1990 5-a-day
Every sheet in September 1990
The same date always regenerates the same five questions, so a sheet you print today is the sheet a classmate prints tomorrow.
- 1st September 1990State one reason a small business might choose to use open source software instead of proprietary (closed source) software.
- 2nd September 1990A FOR loop runs: total = 0, FOR i = 1 TO 4, total = total + i, NEXT i. State the value of total after the loop finishes.
- 3rd September 1990State the key difference between a procedure and a function.
- 4th September 1990State the typical maximum capacity of a single-layer DVD.
- 5th September 1990Explain the role of TCP when a large file is downloaded.
- 6th September 1990State what is meant by a syntax error.
- 7th September 1990Give one advantage of a relational database over a flat-file database.
- 8th September 1990What type of utility software reorganises files on a hard disk so fragmented parts are stored closer together?
- 9th September 1990Calculate the maximum number of comparisons required by a binary search on a sorted list of 512 items.
- 10th September 1990Given P = 0 and Q = 1, state the value of P OR Q.
- 11th September 1990Convert the hexadecimal number 3F to denary.
- 12th September 1990A 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.
- 13th September 1990Give one advantage and one disadvantage of using a compiler.
- 14th September 1990Convert the 4-bit binary number 1101 to denary.
- 15th September 1990Two 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.
- 16th September 1990State why an organisation might employ penetration testers to test its network.
- 17th September 1990Write a loop in pseudocode that outputs every element of a 1D array named names of length 6.
- 18th September 1990State one example of a file format that commonly uses lossy compression.
- 19th September 1990State how many bits are in one byte, and how many bytes are in one kibibyte (KiB).
- 20th September 1990State whether the source code of proprietary (closed source) software is normally available for the public to view.
- 21st September 1990Write one line of pseudocode that converts the string stored in heightInput into a real number and stores it in a variable called height.
- 22nd September 1990A 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.
- 23rd September 1990Order these units of data from smallest to largest: megabyte, byte, gigabyte, kilobyte.
- 24th September 1990A 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?
- 25th September 1990Give one example of erroneous test data for a field that only accepts whole numbers from 1 to 10.
- 26th September 1990A table called bookings has fields bookingId, customerName and eventDate. Write an SQL statement that deletes the booking with bookingId 45.
- 27th September 1990Each 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.
- 28th September 1990Which flowchart symbol shape is used to represent a decision point (e.g. a yes/no branch)?
- 29th September 1990State the two values a Boolean data type can hold.
- 30th September 1990Convert the denary number 39 to an 8-bit binary number, showing your working.