Guidance on the Use of Past Paper Questions

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Guidance on the use of past paper questions

The questions below identify additional support questions from Intermediate 2 Past Papers 2011 to 2013.

Not all topic/areas of study will appear every year due to the sampling techniques used in producing question papers.

Software Design and Development Unit

· Computational constructs and concepts (explaining code, writing code, data types and structures, algorithm specification)

IS Int2
2011 / 8 Explain what is meant by a Boolean data type. 1
15 (c) When setting up the new database, the field called Price (£) is created using a real data type.
Explain what is meant by a “real” data type. 1
Comp Int2
2013 / 14 A supermarket chain, Tesda, allows customers to use self service tills
(b) As the customer adds items to a bag, a program calculates the total weight of the bag. If this bag weighs more than 5 kg a beeping sound is made.
(ii) Part of the algorithm used to generate the beeping sound is shown below:
LINE 1 REPEAT
LINE 2 SET total weight TO total weight + item weight
LINE 3 IF total weight >5 THEN
LINE 4 SEND beep TO speakers
LINE 5 END IF
LINE 6 UNTIL no more items
Name the type of loop used in the algorithm above. 1
(c) The store manager wants a program to calculate when a 2 for 1 promotion should be made available to shoppers. A promotion is offered when the following conditions are met:
• 300 items or more are left in stock
• remaining days are less than 10 days
Part of the algorithm is shown below:
LINE 1 SET remaining days TO sell by date – todays date
LINE 2 IF ______THEN
LINE 3 start 2-for-1 promotion
LINE 4 END IF
(i) Complete line 2 of the algorithm. 2
Comp Int2
2013 / 15 A truck haulage company is planning a program to calculate and display journey times.
(b) The calculation for the journey time is:
Distance divided by Speed add Break Times
(i) Using a high level language with which you are familiar, write a line of code for this calculation. 2
(ii) State a suitable variable type for the journey time. 1
(c) The programmers decide to use pre-defined functions in the code.
Describe one benefit of using pre-defined functions. 1
Comp Int2
2012 / 16 An international language school uses a mainframe computer system to process candidates’ exam results from 50 different countries. A program is being created to analyse these results.
(d) One of the program’s tasks is to calculate the total number of candidates for all 50 countries. Part of the design is shown below.
LINE 1 SET overall total TO zero
LINE 2
LINE 3 RECEIVE country total FROM keyboard
LINE 4 SET overall total TO overall total + country total
LINE 5 END FOR
LINE 6 SEND overall total TO display
Complete step 2 of the design. 1
Comp Int2
2011 / 11. A program has been created to allow student details to be stored.
(a) State the variable type that should be used to store the address of a student. 1
(b) State one method a programmer could use to make the program readable. 1
12. The following is a line of pseudocode used to calculate the volume of a cuboid:
SET volume TO height multiplied by length squared
Using an appropriate high level language with which you are familiar, write program code for this step of the pseudocode above. 1
13. Each contestant in the game show “Total Knockout” must compete in five events.
A program has been created to calculate the total and average points for each contestant.
The pseudocode for part of this program is shown below.
LINE 1 REPEAT 5 TIMES
LINE 2 GET event points FROM keyboard
LINE 3 SET total TO total + event points
LINE 4 END REPEAT
LINE 5 calculate average points
LINE 6 SEND total and average points TO DISPLAY
(a) Name one other design notation that could have been used. 1
(b) Lines 2 and 4 are the beginning and the end of a fixed loop.
Explain why a fixed loop is used here. 1
(c) Using a high level language with which you are familiar, write the line of program code for line 5 of the algorithm. 2
(d) The names of 50 contestants have to be stored.
State the data structure that should be used to store all the contestants’ names. 1
(e) The program design is updated to display an error message if the points entered are not in the range 5 to 25 inclusive. Line 2 of the algorithm is refined to include the conditional statement shown below.
IF (points<5) AND (points>=25) THEN
display error message
END IF
(i) Identify two mistakes made in the above pseudocode. 2
(ii) Name the standard algorithm that is used to check that values entered are within a correct range. 1
(iii) The program is to be tested using 8 and 21 as examples of normal test data for the points.
State two numbers that should be used for extreme test data. 2

Software Design and Development Unit

· Software development – design, testing, documentation

Comp Int2
2011 / 10. Normal and extreme data are used to test a computer program.
State one other type of test data that should be used to test the program. 1

Software Design and Development Unit

· Low level operations and computer architecture

Comp Int2
2013 / 1 Convert the decimal number 27 into an 8 bit binary number. 2
3 Name two parts of a processor. 2
6 State one difference between machine code and a high level language. 1
15 (c) Programmers often use pre-defined functions in the code.
Describe one benefit of using pre-defined functions.” 1
Comp Int2
2012 / 1 Name the part of the processor that temporarily stores data and program instructions. 1
13 A program written in a high level language must be translated.
Describe one benefit to the programmer of using an interpreter rather than a compiler to translate the program code. 1
Comp Int2
2011 / 14 Antiques can be bought and sold on the BargainSearch website.
(b) The reserve price of a vase is £42·50.
State how a real number such as 42·50 would be represented in the computer. 1
(c) A computer program is written in a high level programming language to keep track of the bids for each antique.
(ii) State one advantage of writing the program in a high level language rather than in machine code. 1
(iv) The completed program is compiled.
Describe how a compiler translates a high level language program into machine code. 1