Paper 1: Computer systems

Compare Von Neumann and Harvard architectures, giving a use of each.

Explain how pipelining improves processor performance and one situation that reduces its benefit.

Compare CISC and RISC processors.

Explain why GPUs are used for tasks other than graphics, such as machine learning.

Explain why doubling the number of cores does not double performance.

Compare solid-state drives with magnetic hard drives for a laptop.

State two differences between RAM and ROM.

A wildlife charity records video on remote cameras and needs to send footage back monthly. Recommend a storage medium for the cameras and justify it.

Compare paging and segmentation.

Describe round robin and shortest job first scheduling, and one disadvantage of each.

Explain how an interrupt is handled by the processor.

State two functions of the BIOS.

Explain two uses of virtual machines.

Discuss one advantage and one disadvantage of open-source software for a school.

Describe the stages of compilation.

A start-up is developing a mobile banking app. Discuss the suitability of the waterfall model and agile methodologies for this project.

Compare procedural and object-oriented programming.

Trace the following Little Man Computer program when the input is 3. State the outputs and explain the program's purpose.

        INP        STA numloop    LDA num        SUB one        STA num        OUT        BRZ end        BRA loopend     HLTnum     DATone     DAT 1

Explain why lossy compression is unsuitable for a program file.

Explain how asymmetric encryption allows two people who have never met to communicate securely.

Explain why passwords are stored as hashes rather than encrypted.

A library stores: Loan(LoanID, MemberID, MemberName, BookID, Title, Author, DateOut). (i) Explain why this is not in third normal form. (ii) Normalise it to 3NF. (iii) Write an SQL statement to list titles of books borrowed by member M104.

Explain referential integrity using the library database.

Explain atomicity and durability.

Explain the advantages of using a layered protocol stack such as TCP/IP.

Explain how DNS resolves a domain name to an IP address.

Compare packet switching with circuit switching.

Explain how firewalls and proxy servers protect a network.

Convert 10110110 to denary and hexadecimal.

Represent −20 in 8-bit sign and magnitude and in two's complement.

A floating-point number has an 8-bit mantissa 0.0011010 and a 4-bit exponent 0101 (both two's complement). Normalise it and show that its value is 6.5.

For the byte 10110110, state the result of AND 00001111, OR 11110000 and XOR 11111111.

Explain why Unicode replaced ASCII for many applications.

A binary search tree contains 50 at the root; 30 and 70 are its children; 20 and 40 are children of 30; 60 and 80 are children of 70. State the pre-order, in-order and post-order traversals.

Use a Karnaugh map to simplify Ā·B̄ + Ā·B + A·B.

Explain how two pieces of UK legislation apply to a company that collects customers' data online.

Discuss the ethical, moral and cultural issues of companies using artificial intelligence to screen job applicants.