0% found this document useful (0 votes)

234 views

Computer A Level Full Noneed To Search

This document contains instructions for a computer science exam. It provides information about the exam such as its duration, materials allowed, and rules for answering questions. The exam contains multiple choice and written response questions on topics like pseudocode, data structures, program flowcharts, and using text files. It directs students to refer to an included insert for resources and provides spaces for students to write their answers. The document is 24 pages long and includes sample exam questions.

Uploaded by

Sushank Giri

We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.

Available Formats

Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

0% found this document useful (0 votes)

234 views

Computer A Level Full Noneed To Search

Uploaded by

Sushank Giri

We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.

Available Formats

Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

You are on page 1/ 244

Cambridge International AS & A Level

* 0 9 1 0 1 4 3 9 3 6 *

COMPUTER SCIENCE 9618/21

Paper 2 Fundamental Problem-solving and Programming Skills May/June 2021

2 hours

You must answer on the question paper.

You will need: Insert (enclosed)

INSTRUCTIONS
● Answer all questions.
● Use a black or dark blue pen.
● Write your name, centre number and candidate number in the boxes at the top of the page.
● Write your answer to each question in the space provided.
● Do not use an erasable pen or correction fluid.
● Do not write on any bar codes.
● You may use an HB pencil for any diagrams, graphs or rough working.
● Calculators must not be used in this paper.

INFORMATION
● The total mark for this paper is 75.
● The number of marks for each question or part question is shown in brackets [ ].
● No marks will be awarded for using brand names of software packages or hardware.
● The insert contains all the resources referred to in the questions.

This document has 24 pages. Any blank pages are indicated.

DC (PQ) 214717
© UCLES 2021 [Turn over
2

Refer to the insert for the list of pseudocode functions and operators.

1 (a) A program is being developed to help manage the membership of a football club.

Complete the following identifier table.

Example
Explanation Variable name Data type
value

The preferred name of the member

"Wong"
joining the football club

A value to indicate whether an

FALSE existing member of the club lives at
the same address

When the member joined the football

19/02/1983
club

The number of points a member has

1345 earned. Members of the club earn
points for different activities.
[4]

(b) Each pseudocode statement in the following table may contain an error due to the incorrect
use of the function or operator.

Describe the error in each case, or write ‘NO ERROR’ if the statement contains no error.

You can assume that none of the variables referenced are of an incorrect type.

Statement Error

Result 2 & 4

SubString MID("pseudocode", 4, 1)

IF x = 3 OR 4 THEN

Result Status AND INT(x/2)

Message "Done" + LENGTH(MyString)

[5]

© UCLES 2021 9618/21/M/J/21

• student name (a string)

• test score (an integer).

State a suitable data structure and justify your answer.

Structure ...................................................................................................................................

Justification ...............................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................
[3]

© UCLES 2021 9618/21/M/J/21 [Turn over

2 (a) Four program modules form part of a program for a library.

A description of the relationship between the modules is summarised as follows:

Module name Description

UpdateLoan() • Calls either LoanExtend() or LoanReturn()

• Called with parameters LoanID and BookID
• Calls CheckReserve() to see whether the book has been
LoanExtend() reserved for another library user
• Returns TRUE if the loan has been extended, otherwise returns
FALSE
• Called with BookID
CheckReserve() • Returns TRUE if the book has been reserved, otherwise returns
FALSE
• Called with parameters LoanID and BookID
LoanReturn() • Returns a REAL (which is the value of the fine to be paid in the
case of an overdue loan)

Draw a structure chart to show the relationship between the four modules and the parameters
passed between them.

[5]
© UCLES 2021 9618/21/M/J/21
5

(b) The definition for module LoanReturn() is amended as follows:

Module name Description

Called with parameters LoanID, BookID and Fine
LoanReturn() The module code checks whether the book has been returned on time
and then assigns a new value to Fine

• LoanID and BookID are of type STRING

• Fine is of type REAL

Write the pseudocode header for the amended module LoanReturn().

...................................................................................................................................................

............................................................................................................................................. [2]

© UCLES 2021 9618/21/M/J/21 [Turn over

(c) A program will:

• input 50 unique integer values

• output the largest value
• output the average of the values excluding the largest value.

Draw a program flowchart to represent the algorithm.

Variable declarations are not required.

It is not necessary to check that each input value is unique.

[6]
© UCLES 2021 9618/21/M/J/21
7

BLANK PAGE

© UCLES 2021 9618/21/M/J/21 [Turn over

3 (a) A concert venue uses a program to calculate admission prices and store information about
ticket sales.

A number of arrays are used to store data. The computer is switched off overnight and data
has to be input again at the start of each day before any tickets can be sold. This process is
very time consuming.

(i) Explain how the program could use text files to speed up the process.

...........................................................................................................................................

..................................................................................................................................... [2]

(ii) State the characteristic of text files that allow them to be used as explained in part (a)(i).

...........................................................................................................................................

..................................................................................................................................... [1]

(iii) Information about ticket sales will be stored as a booking. The booking requires the
following data:

• name of person booking

• number of people in the group (for example a family ticket or a school party)
• event type.

Suggest how data relating to each booking may be stored in a text file.

...........................................................................................................................................

..................................................................................................................................... [2]

© UCLES 2021 9618/21/M/J/21

(b) A procedure Preview() will:

• take the name of a text file as a parameter

• output a warning message if the file is empty
• otherwise output the first five lines from the file (or as many lines as there are in the file if
this number is less than five).

Write pseudocode for the procedure Preview().

...................................................................................................................................................

............................................................................................................................................. [5]

© UCLES 2021 9618/21/M/J/21 [Turn over

4 Study the following pseudocode. Line numbers are for reference only.

10 FUNCTION Convert(Name : STRING) RETURNS STRING

11
12 DECLARE Flag: BOOLEAN
13 DECLARE Index : INTEGER
14 DECLARE ThisChar : CHAR
15 DECLARE NewName : STRING
16
17 CONSTANT SPACECHAR = ' '
18
19 Flag TRUE
20 Index 1
21 NewName "" // formatted name string
22
23 WHILE Index <= LENGTH(Name)
24 ThisChar MID(Name, Index, 1)
25 IF Flag = TRUE THEN
26 NewName NewName & UCASE(ThisChar)
27 IF ThisChar <> SPACECHAR THEN
28 Flag FALSE
29 ENDIF
30 ELSE
31 NewName NewName & ThisChar
32 ENDIF
33 IF ThisChar = SPACECHAR THEN
34 Flag TRUE
35 ENDIF
36 Index Index + 1
37 ENDWHILE
38
39 RETURN NewName
40
41 ENDFUNCTION

© UCLES 2021 9618/21/M/J/21

(a) Complete the trace table below by dry running the function when it is called as follows:

Result Convert("∇in∇a∇∇Cup")

Note: The symbol '∇' has been used to represent a space character.
Use this symbol for any space characters in the trace table.

The first row has been completed for you.

Name Flag Index NewName ThisChar

"∇in∇a∇∇Cup"

[5]

© UCLES 2021 9618/21/M/J/21 [Turn over

(b) The pseudocode for Convert() contains a conditional loop.

State a more appropriate loop structure.

Justify your answer.

Loop structure ...........................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

Justification ...............................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................
[2]

(c) Two changes need to be made to the algorithm.

Change 1: Convert to lower case any character that is not the first character after a space.
Change 2: Replace multiple spaces with a single space.

(i) Change 1 may be implemented by modifying one line of the pseudocode.

Write the modified line.

...........................................................................................................................................

.......................................................................................................................................[1]

(ii) Change 2 may be implemented by moving one line of the pseudocode.

Write the number of the line to be moved and state its new position.

Line number ......................................................................................................................

New position ......................................................................................................................

...........................................................................................................................................
[2]

© UCLES 2021 9618/21/M/J/21

BLANK PAGE

© UCLES 2021 9618/21/M/J/21 [Turn over

5 A global 2D array Result of type INTEGER is used to store a list of exam candidate numbers
together with their marks. The array contains 2000 elements, organised as 1000 rows and
2 columns.

Column 1 contains the candidate number and column 2 contains the mark for the corresponding
candidate. All elements contain valid exam result data.

A procedure Sort() is needed to sort Result into ascending order of mark using an efficient
bubble sort algorithm.

Write pseudocode for the procedure Sort().

..........................................................................................................................................................

© UCLES 2021 9618/21/M/J/21

..........................................................................................................................................................

.................................................................................................................................................... [8]

© UCLES 2021 9618/21/M/J/21 [Turn over

6 The following diagram represents an Abstract Data Type (ADT) for a linked list.

A C D E Ø

The free list is as follows:

(a) Explain how a node containing data value B is added to the list in alphabetic sequence.

...................................................................................................................................................

............................................................................................................................................. [4]

(b) Describe how the linked list in part (a) may be implemented using variables and arrays.

...................................................................................................................................................

............................................................................................................................................. [2]

© UCLES 2021 9618/21/M/J/21

BLANK PAGE

© UCLES 2021 9618/21/M/J/21 [Turn over

7 A program is needed to take a string containing a full name and produce a new string of initials.

Some words in the full name will be ignored. For example, "the", "and", "of", "for" and "to" may all
be ignored.

Each letter of the abbreviated string must be upper case.

For example:

Full name Initials

Integrated Development Environment IDE

The American Standard Code for Information Interchange ASCII

The programmer has decided to use a global variable FNString of type STRING to store the full
name.

It is assumed that:

• words in the full name string are separated by a single space character
• space characters will not occur at the beginning or the end of the full name string
• the full name string contains at least one word.

The programmer has started to define program modules as follows:

Module Description
• Called with an INTEGER as a parameter, representing the number of a
word in FNString.
GetStart()
• Returns the character start position of that word in FNString or
returns –1 if that word does not exist
• For example: if FNString contains the string "hot and cold",
GetStart(3) returns 9
• Called with a parameter representing the position of the first character
of a word in FNString
GetWord() • Returns the word from FNString
• For example: if FNString contains the string "hot and cold",
GetWord(9) returns "cold"

© UCLES 2021 9618/21/M/J/21

(a) Write pseudocode for the module GetStart().

...................................................................................................................................................

© UCLES 2021 9618/21/M/J/21 [Turn over

...................................................................................................................................................

............................................................................................................................................. [7]

(b) The programmer has decided to use a global ten-element 1D array IgnoreList of type
STRING to store the ignored words. Unused elements contain the empty string ("") and may
occur anywhere in the array.

A new module AddWord() is needed as follows:

Module Description
• Called with a parameter representing a word
• Stores the word in an unused element of the IgnoreList array
AddWord() and returns TRUE
• Returns FALSE if the array was already full or if the word was
already in the array

Write a detailed description of the algorithm for AddWord(). Do not include pseudocode
statements in your answer.

...................................................................................................................................................

............................................................................................................................................. [4]

© UCLES 2021 9618/21/M/J/21

(c) As a reminder, the module description of GetWord() is repeated:

Module Description
• Called with a parameter representing the position of the first
character of a word in FNString
GetWord() • Returns the word from FNString
• For example: if FNString contains the string "hot and cold",
GetWord(9) returns "cold"

Write pseudocode for the module GetWord().

...................................................................................................................................................

............................................................................................................................................. [5]
© UCLES 2021 9618/21/M/J/21
22

BLANK PAGE

© UCLES 2021 9618/21/M/J/21

BLANK PAGE

© UCLES 2021 9618/21/M/J/21

BLANK PAGE

Permission to reproduce items where third-party owned material protected by copyright is included has been sought and cleared where possible. Every
reasonable effort has been made by the publisher (UCLES) to trace copyright holders, but if any items requiring clearance have unwittingly been included, the
publisher will be pleased to make amends at the earliest possible opportunity.

To avoid the issue of disclosure of answer-related information to candidates, all copyright acknowledgements are reproduced online in the Cambridge
Assessment International Education Copyright Acknowledgements Booklet. This is produced for each series of examinations and is freely available to download
at www.cambridgeinternational.org after the live examination series.

Cambridge Assessment International Education is part of the Cambridge Assessment Group. Cambridge Assessment is the brand name of the University of
Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES), which itself is a department of the University of Cambridge.

© UCLES 2021 9618/21/M/J/21

Cambridge International AS & A Level
* 3 0 1 3 8 0 7 6 7 4 *

COMPUTER SCIENCE 9618/22

Paper 2 Fundamental Problem-solving and Programming Skills May/June 2021

2 hours

You must answer on the question paper.

You will need: Insert (enclosed)

INSTRUCTIONS
● Answer all questions
● Use a black or dark blue pen.
● Write your name, centre number and candidate number in the boxes at the top of the page.
● Write your answer to each question in the space provided.
● Do not use an erasable pen or correction fluid.
● Do not write on any bar codes.
● You may use an HB pencil for any diagrams, graphs or rough working.
● Calculators must not be used in this paper.

This document has 16 pages. Any blank pages are indicated.

DC (MB/FC) 200588/5
© UCLES 2021 [Turn over
2

Refer to the insert for the list of pseudocode functions and operators.

1 (a) (i) Complete the following table by giving the appropriate data type in each case.

Variable Example data value Data type

Name "Catherine"
Index 100
Modified FALSE
Holiday 25/12/2020
[4]

(ii) Evaluate each expression in the following table by using the initial data values shown in
part (a)(i).

Expression Evaluates to
Modified OR Index > 100
LENGTH("Student: " & Name)
INT(Index + 2.9)
MID(Name, 1, 3)
[4]

(b) Each pseudocode statement in the following table contains an example of selection,
assignment or iteration.

Put one tick (‘✓’) in the appropriate column for each statement.

Statement Selection Assignment Iteration

Index Index + 1
IF Modified = TRUE THEN
ENDWHILE
[3]

© UCLES 2021 9618/22/M/J/21

2 (a) Examine the following state-transition diagram.

Low level detected | Activate pump

Low level detected

X S2
S1

Normal level detected Normal level detected | Deactivate pump

(i) Complete the table with reference to the diagram.

Answer
The number of transitions that result in a different state
The number of transitions with associated outputs
The label that should replace ‘X’
The final or halting state
[4]

(ii) The current state is S1. The following inputs occur.

1. Low level detected

2. Low level detected
3. Low level detected
4. Low level detected

Give the number of outputs and the current state.

Number of outputs .............................................................................................................

Current state .....................................................................................................................

[2]

© UCLES 2021 9618/22/M/J/21 [Turn over

(b) A system is being developed to help manage book loans in a library.

Registered users may borrow books from the library for a period of time.

(i) State three items of data that must be stored for each loan.

1 ........................................................................................................................................

2 ........................................................................................................................................

3 ........................................................................................................................................
[2]

(ii) State one item of data that will be required in the library system but does not need to be
stored for each loan.

..................................................................................................................................... [1]

(iii) One operation that manipulates the data stored for each loan, would produce a list of all
overdue books.

Identify two other operations.

Operation 1 .......................................................................................................................

...........................................................................................................................................

Operation 2 .......................................................................................................................

...........................................................................................................................................
[2]

© UCLES 2021 9618/22/M/J/21

3 The following diagram represents an Abstract Data Type (ADT).

A B
Dolphin Cat Fish Elk

(a) Identify this type of ADT.

............................................................................................................................................. [1]

(b) Give the technical term for the item labelled A in the diagram.

............................................................................................................................................. [1]

Explain the meaning of the value given to this item.

Term ..........................................................................................................................................

Meaning ....................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................
[2]

(d) Complete the diagram to show the ADT after the data has been sorted in alphabetical order.

Dolphin Cat Fish Elk

[2]

© UCLES 2021 9618/22/M/J/21 [Turn over

4 A teacher uses a paper-based system to store marks for a class test. The teacher requires a
program to assign grades based on these results.

The program will output the grades together with the average mark.

Write a detailed description of the algorithm that will be needed.

..........................................................................................................................................................

.................................................................................................................................................... [6]

© UCLES 2021 9618/22/M/J/21

5 (a) A student is learning about arrays.

She wants to write a program to:

• declare a 1D array RNum of 100 elements of type INTEGER

• assign each element a random value in the range 1 to 200 inclusive
• count and output how many numbers generated were between 66 and 173 inclusive.

(i) Write pseudocode to represent the algorithm.

...........................................................................................................................................

..................................................................................................................................... [6]

(ii) The student decides to modify the algorithm so that each element of the array will contain
a unique value.

Describe the changes that the student needs to make to the algorithm.

...........................................................................................................................................

..................................................................................................................................... [3]

© UCLES 2021 9618/22/M/J/21 [Turn over

(b) The following is a pseudocode function.

Line numbers are given for reference only.

01 FUNCTION StringClean(InString : STRING) RETURNS STRING

02
03 DECLARE NextChar : CHAR
04 DECLARE OutString : STRING
05 DECLARE Counter : INTEGER
06
07 OutString ""
08
09 FOR Counter 1 TO LENGTH(InString)
10 NextChar MID(InString, Counter, 1)
11 NextChar LCASE(NextChar)
12 IF NOT((NextChar < 'a') OR (NextChar > 'z')) THEN
13 OutString OutString & NextChar
14 ENDIF
15 NEXT Counter
16
17 RETURN OutString
18
19 ENDFUNCTION

(i) Examine the pseudocode and complete the following table.

Answer

Give a line number containing an example of an initialisation statement.

Give a line number containing the start of a repeating block of code.

Give a line number containing a logic operation.

Give the number of parameters to the function MID().

[4]

(ii) Write a simplified version of the statement in line 12.

...........................................................................................................................................

..................................................................................................................................... [2]

© UCLES 2021 9618/22/M/J/21

BLANK PAGE

© UCLES 2021 9618/22/M/J/21 [Turn over

6 A procedure CountVowels() will:

• be called with a string containing alphanumeric characters as its parameter

• count and output the number of occurrences of each vowel (a, e, i, o, u) in the string
• count and output the number of occurrences of the other alphabetic characters (as a single
total).

The string may contain both upper and lower case characters.

Each count value will be stored in a unique element of a global 1D array CharCount of type
INTEGER. The array will contain six elements.

Write pseudocode for the procedure CountVowels().

..........................................................................................................................................................

© UCLES 2021 9618/22/M/J/21

..........................................................................................................................................................

.................................................................................................................................................... [8]

7 A procedure, FormatName():

• is called with a string containing words and spaces as its parameter. In this context, a word is
any sequence of characters that does not contain a space character.

• creates a new formatted string from this string with the following requirements:
1. Any leading spaces removed (spaces before the first word).
2. Any trailing spaces removed (spaces after the last word).
3. Any multiple spaces between words converted to a single space.
4. All characters converted to lower case.

The FormatName() procedure has been written in a programming language and is to be tested
using the black-box method.

(a) Give a test string that could be used to show that all four formatting requirements have been
applied correctly.

Use the symbol ‘∇’ to represent a space character.

............................................................................................................................................. [3]

(b) The FormatName() procedure should assign a value to the global variable FString.

There is a fault in the program, which means that the assignment does not always take place.

Explain two ways of exposing the fault.

...................................................................................................................................................

............................................................................................................................................. [2]

© UCLES 2021 9618/22/M/J/21 [Turn over

8 A program is needed to take a string containing a full name and to produce a new string of initials.

Some words in the full name will be ignored. For example, “the”, “and”, “of”, “for” and “to” may all
be ignored.

Each letter of the new string must be upper case.

For example:

Full name Initials

Integrated Development Environment IDE
The American Standard Code for Information Interchange ASCII

The programmer has decided to use the following global variables:

• a ten element 1D array IgnoreList of type STRING to store the ignored words
• a string FNString to store the full name string.

Assume that:

• each alphabetic character in the full name string may be either upper or lower case
• the full name string contains at least one word.

The programmer has started to define program modules as follows:

Module Description
• Called with an INTEGER as its parameter, representing the number of
a word in FNString
GetStart() • Returns the character start position of that word in FNString or
returns -1 if that word does not exist
• For example: GetStart(3) applied to "hot and cold" returns 9
• Called with the position of the first character of a word in FNString
as its parameter
GetWord() • Returns the word from FNString
• For example: if FNString contains the string "hot and cold",
GetWord(9) returns "cold"
• Called with a STRING parameter representing a word
IgnoreWord() • Searches for the word in the IgnoreList array
• Returns TRUE if the word is found, otherwise returns FALSE
• Processes the sequence of words in the full name one word at a time
GetInitials()
• Calls GetStart(), GetWord() and IgnoreWord() to process
each word to form the new string
• Outputs the new string

© UCLES 2021 9618/22/M/J/21

(a) Write pseudocode for the module IgnoreWord().

...................................................................................................................................................

............................................................................................................................................. [5]

© UCLES 2021 9618/22/M/J/21 [Turn over

(b) Write pseudocode for the module GetInitials().

...................................................................................................................................................

............................................................................................................................................. [8]
© UCLES 2021 9618/22/M/J/21
15

BLANK PAGE

© UCLES 2021 9618/22/M/J/21

BLANK PAGE

© UCLES 2021 9618/22/M/J/21

Cambridge International AS & A Level
* 7 4 8 3 1 9 9 9 0 1 *

COMPUTER SCIENCE 9618/23

Paper 2 Fundamental Problem-solving and Programming Skills May/June 2021

2 hours

You must answer on the question paper.

You will need: Insert (enclosed)

This document has 24 pages. Any blank pages are indicated.

DC (PQ/FC) 200587/4
© UCLES 2021 [Turn over
2

Refer to the insert for the list of pseudocode functions and operators.

1 (a) A program is being developed to help manage the membership of a football club.

Complete the following identifier table.

Example
Explanation Variable name Data type
value

The preferred name of the member

"Wong"
joining the football club

A value to indicate whether an

FALSE existing member of the club lives at
the same address

When the member joined the football

19/02/1983
club

The number of points a member has

1345 earned. Members of the club earn
points for different activities.
[4]

(b) Each pseudocode statement in the following table may contain an error due to the incorrect
use of the function or operator.

Describe the error in each case, or write ‘NO ERROR’ if the statement contains no error.

You can assume that none of the variables referenced are of an incorrect type.

Statement Error

Result 2 & 4

SubString MID("pseudocode", 4, 1)

IF x = 3 OR 4 THEN

Result Status AND INT(x/2)

Message "Done" + LENGTH(MyString)

[5]

© UCLES 2021 9618/23/M/J/21

• student name (a string)

• test score (an integer).

State a suitable data structure and justify your answer.

Structure ...................................................................................................................................

Justification ...............................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................
[3]

© UCLES 2021 9618/23/M/J/21 [Turn over

2 (a) Four program modules form part of a program for a library.

A description of the relationship between the modules is summarised as follows:

Module name Description

UpdateLoan() • Calls either LoanExtend() or LoanReturn()

Draw a structure chart to show the relationship between the four modules and the parameters
passed between them.

[5]
© UCLES 2021 9618/23/M/J/21
5

(b) The definition for module LoanReturn() is amended as follows:

Module name Description

Called with parameters LoanID, BookID and Fine
LoanReturn() The module code checks whether the book has been returned on time
and then assigns a new value to Fine

• LoanID and BookID are of type STRING

• Fine is of type REAL

Write the pseudocode header for the amended module LoanReturn().

...................................................................................................................................................

............................................................................................................................................. [2]

© UCLES 2021 9618/23/M/J/21 [Turn over

(c) A program will:

• input 50 unique integer values

• output the largest value
• output the average of the values excluding the largest value.

Draw a program flowchart to represent the algorithm.

Variable declarations are not required.

It is not necessary to check that each input value is unique.

[6]
© UCLES 2021 9618/23/M/J/21
7