Daily Practice · GCSE Computer Science

April 1997 - GCSE Computer Science 5-a-day

Every sheet in April 1997

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

  1. 1st April 1997A pseudocode algorithm is: count <- 0, x <- 10, WHILE x > 0, count <- count + 1, x <- x - 3, ENDWHILE, OUTPUT count. Complete a trace table for x and count, laid out as x | count, then state the value output.
  2. 2nd April 1997A 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.
  3. 3rd April 1997Give one advantage and one disadvantage of using a compiler.
  4. 4th April 1997Convert the 4-bit binary number 1101 to denary.
  5. 5th April 1997Two 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.
  6. 6th April 1997State why an organisation might employ penetration testers to test its network.
  7. 7th April 1997Write a loop in pseudocode that outputs every element of a 1D array named names of length 6.
  8. 8th April 1997State one example of a file format that commonly uses lossy compression.
  9. 9th April 1997State how many bits are in one byte, and how many bytes are in one kibibyte (KiB).
  10. 10th April 1997State whether the source code of proprietary (closed source) software is normally available for the public to view.
  11. 11th April 1997Write one line of pseudocode that converts the string stored in heightInput into a real number and stores it in a variable called height.
  12. 12th April 1997State the value returned by LENGTH(word) if word stores the string 'Computer'.
  13. 13th April 1997Order these units of data from smallest to largest: megabyte, byte, gigabyte, kilobyte.
  14. 14th April 1997A 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?
  15. 15th April 1997Give one example of erroneous test data for a field that only accepts whole numbers from 1 to 10.
  16. 16th April 1997A table called books has fields bookId, title, authorId and copiesAvailable. Write an SQL statement that selects the title of every book with more than 2 copies available.
  17. 17th April 1997Each 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.
  18. 18th April 1997Which flowchart symbol shape is used to represent a decision point (e.g. a yes/no branch)?
  19. 19th April 1997State the two values a Boolean data type can hold.
  20. 20th April 1997State how many different values can be represented using 5 bits, and explain your reasoning.
  21. 21st April 1997Calculate the number of cables needed to connect 8 computers in a full mesh topology, where every computer connects directly to every other computer.
  22. 22nd April 1997Name the translator used for assembly language and describe how it differs from a compiler.
  23. 23rd April 1997Convert the hexadecimal number 1A to denary.
  24. 24th April 1997Convert the denary number 156 to an 8 bit binary number.
  25. 25th April 1997Which type of malware can replicate itself and spread across a network without attaching to another program or needing a user to run it?
  26. 26th April 1997Explain what happens if a program tries to read index 5 of an array declared with 5 elements.
  27. 27th April 1997An image uses a colour depth of 2 bits per pixel. Calculate the maximum number of different colours it can represent.
  28. 28th April 1997A 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.
  29. 29th April 1997Describe two negative consequences of throwing away old computer hardware instead of recycling it.
  30. 30th April 1997Write a function called isEven that takes one integer parameter, num, and returns True if num is even and False otherwise.