Daily Practice · GCSE Computer Science

December 1991 5-a-day

Every sheet in December 1991

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

  1. 1st December 1991State one reason a small business might choose to use open source software instead of proprietary (closed source) software.
  2. 2nd December 1991A FOR loop runs: total = 0, FOR i = 1 TO 4, total = total + i, NEXT i. State the value of total after the loop finishes.
  3. 3rd December 1991State the key difference between a procedure and a function.
  4. 4th December 1991State the typical maximum capacity of a single-layer DVD.
  5. 5th December 1991Name the four layers of the TCP/IP model in order from the one closest to the user.
  6. 6th December 1991State what is meant by a syntax error.
  7. 7th December 1991Give one advantage of a relational database over a flat-file database.
  8. 8th December 1991What type of utility software reorganises files on a hard disk so fragmented parts are stored closer together?
  9. 9th December 1991Calculate the maximum number of comparisons required by a binary search on a sorted list of 512 items.
  10. 10th December 1991Given P = 0 and Q = 1, state the value of P OR Q.
  11. 11th December 1991Convert the hexadecimal number 3F to denary.
  12. 12th December 1991A 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.
  13. 13th December 1991A program compiles and runs but always outputs an average that is too small. State the type of error and explain why the translator did not report it.
  14. 14th December 1991Convert the 4-bit binary number 1101 to denary.
  15. 15th December 1991Two 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.
  16. 16th December 1991State why an organisation might employ penetration testers to test its network.
  17. 17th December 1991An array named temps holds 12 values. State the index of the first item and the index of the last item.
  18. 18th December 1991State one example of a file format that commonly uses lossy compression.
  19. 19th December 1991State how many bits are in one byte, and how many bytes are in one kibibyte (KiB).
  20. 20th December 1991State whether the source code of proprietary (closed source) software is normally available for the public to view.
  21. 21st December 1991Write one line of pseudocode that converts the string stored in heightInput into a real number and stores it in a variable called height.
  22. 22nd December 1991A 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.
  23. 23rd December 1991Order these units of data from smallest to largest: megabyte, byte, gigabyte, kilobyte.
  24. 24th December 1991State the difference between HTTP and HTTPS, and give one situation where HTTPS is essential.
  25. 25th December 1991Give one example of erroneous test data for a field that only accepts whole numbers from 1 to 10.
  26. 26th December 1991A table called bookings has fields bookingId, customerName and eventDate. Write an SQL statement that deletes the booking with bookingId 45.
  27. 27th December 1991Each 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.
  28. 28th December 1991Which flowchart symbol shape is used to represent a decision point (e.g. a yes/no branch)?
  29. 29th December 1991State the two values a Boolean data type can hold.
  30. 30th December 1991Convert the denary number 39 to an 8-bit binary number, showing your working.
  31. 31st December 1991Calculate the number of cables needed to connect 8 computers in a full mesh topology, where every computer connects directly to every other computer.