Modified Enlarged 24pt

OXFORD CAMBRIDGE AND RSA EXAMINATIONS

Monday 13 June 2022 – Afternoon

A Level Computer Science
H446/01 Computer Systems
Time allowed: 2 hours 30 minutes
plus your additional time allowance
YOU CAN USE:
an HB pencil
DO NOT USE:
a calculator

Please write clearly in black ink.

Centre number
Candidate number
First name(s)
Last name

READ INSTRUCTIONS OVERLEAF

© OCR 2022 [601/4911/5]
DC (ST) 318444/1
* 1 0 6 2 1 2 2 3 0 7 *
INSTRUCTIONS
Use black ink. You can use an HB pencil,
but only for graphs and diagrams.
Write your answer to each question in the
space provided. If you need extra space
use the lined pages at the end of this
booklet. The question numbers must be
clearly shown.
Answer ALL the questions.

INFORMATION
The total mark for this paper is 140.
The marks for each question are shown in
brackets [ ].
Quality of extended response will be
assessed in questions marked with an
asterisk (*).

ADVICE
Read each question carefully before you
start your answer.

2
BLANK PAGE

3
Answer ALL questions.

1 A charity uses a desktop computer

to record financial donations that it
receives. The computer contains a
single core, 2.4GHz processor with 2MB
cache.

(a) The processor uses the Von

Neumann architecture.

(i) Describe what is meant by

the term ‘Von Neumann
architecture’.

____________________________

____________________________

____________________________

_________________________ [2]

4
 (ii) Give ONE way that the Harvard
architecture differs from the Von
Neumann architecture.

____________________________

_________________________ [1]

(b) The charity is concerned that the

performance of the computer is not
sufficient and wishes to replace the
processor.

Give TWO features of a replacement

processor that would increase
the typical performance of the
computer.

1 _____________________________

_______________________________

2 _____________________________

_______________________________
[2]

5
(c) FIG. 1 shows assembly code written
using the Little Man Computer
(LMC). The program calculates
and outputs the total amount that
is donated to the charity in any
particular day. Depending on the
amount, an additional bonus may be
added to each amount donated.

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FIG. 1

start INP
STA donation
SUB hundred
BRP bonus
nobonus LDA total
ADD donation
STA total
OUT
BRA start
bonus LDA total
ADD donation
ADD twenty
STA total
OUT
BRA start
hundred DAT 100
twenty DAT 20
donation DAT 0
total DAT 0

7
(i) The program shown in FIG. 1 is
run ONCE using THREE different
inputs. Therefore, while the
program is running once, it will
output the updated total three
times.

Give the total values that are

output when the values 10,
50 and 120 are input into this
program.
Output for 10 ________________

Output for 50 ________________

Output for 120 _______________

[3]

8
(ii) Write LMC code that will reset
the value of the memory location
labelled total to zero and then
stop the program.
____________________________

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_________________________ [4]

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(iii) This program is run on a
processor that allows pipelining.

Define the term ‘pipelining’.

____________________________

____________________________

____________________________

____________________________

____________________________

_________________________ [3]

(iv) Explain ONE benefit to the

charity of using a processor that
allows pipelining.

____________________________

____________________________

____________________________

_________________________ [2]
10
(d) The processor contains registers
including the accumulator and the
program counter. The contents of
these registers are modified during
the Fetch-Decode-Execute cycle.

(i) Describe how the accumulator

is used during the
Fetch-Decode-Execute cycle.

____________________________

____________________________

____________________________

_________________________ [2]

(ii) Describe how the program

counter is used during the
Fetch-Decode-Execute cycle.

____________________________

____________________________

____________________________
_________________________ [2]

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 (iii) State the name of THREE other
registers that are used during
the Fetch-Decode-Execute cycle.

1 __________________________

____________________________

2 __________________________

____________________________

3 __________________________

____________________________
[3]

(e)* The charity has several desktop

computers in their office that
use a CISC processor. They are
considering buying mobile devices
for their staff to use when they are
not in the office.

Discuss whether these mobile

devices should use the same CISC
processors that are used in their
desktop computers or if they should
use a RISC processor instead.
12
You should include the following in
your answer:

the difference between each

processor type

the suitability of each processor

type for mobile devices. [12]

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BLANK PAGE

17
2 A video streaming service uses a
relational database. An extract of the
data from two tables from this database
is shown in FIG. 2.

Membership contains data about

current memberships that customers
hold and package contains data about
different streaming packages available.

(a) (i) State what is meant by the term

‘primary key’.

____________________________

_________________________ [1]

(ii) Identify the foreign key used in

the database and the table name
where this is a foreign key.

Foreign Key _________________

____________________________

Table Name _________________

____________________________
[2]
18
 FIG. 2

Username FirstName StartDate PackageType

User001 Amaya 08/05/2016 Premium
User002 Amit 06/06/2019 Basic
User003 Tom 17/08/2019 Free
User004 Kareem 08/08/2017 Basic
User005 Sarah 25/03/2020 Premium

19
Membership

PackageType CostPerMonth(£) Adverts

Premium 12.99 false
Basic 7.99 true
Free 0.00 true
Package
(iii) Identify the data type of the
CostPerMonth(£) field.

____________________________

_________________________ [1]

(iv) Give the name of the field that

could be stored using a Boolean
data type.

____________________________

_________________________ [1]

20
(b) The Adverts field indicates if
customers will be shown adverts.
true indicates that customers
will be shown adverts, and false
indicates that adverts are not shown.

Write Structured Query Language

(SQL) to return the Username and
FirstName fields for all customers
who see adverts.
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
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____________________________ [5]
21
(c) When new customers join the
streaming service, their name,
email address and contact details
are captured so that they can be
entered into the database.

(i) Identify ONE method of

capturing a new customer’s
personal data, describing why
this method is suitable.

Method _____________________

____________________________

Suitability __________________

____________________________

____________________________

____________________________
[3]

22
(ii) Sometimes the company may
need to move or backup its data
they hold about customers.

Identify TWO methods of

exchanging data with other
computer systems.

1 __________________________

____________________________

2 __________________________

____________________________
[2]

23
(d) The database supports ACID
transactions. ACID stands for
Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation
and Durability.

(i) Describe what is meant by a

transaction being durable.

____________________________

____________________________

____________________________

_________________________ [2]

(ii) Give ONE way that durability

can be achieved for a completed
transaction.

____________________________

_________________________ [1]

24
(iii) Explain how record locking can
be used to ensure that the ACID
principle of isolation is achieved
when carrying out multiple
transactions.

____________________________

____________________________

____________________________

____________________________

____________________________

_________________________ [3]

(iv) Give ONE disadvantage of using

record locking.

____________________________

_________________________ [1]

25
(e) The Copyright Designs and Patents
Act 1988 applies to all videos that
are streamed.

Explain how this act applies to the

videos.

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

____________________________ [2]

26
(f) All videos that are streamed are
compressed. Customers have the
option to choose from watching the
videos with lossy compression or
lossless compression.

Explain how this choice will impact

the customer.

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

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____________________________ [5]
27
(g) A program is written using an
object-oriented programming
paradigm and uses a class called
video to organise the videos that
are streamed to customers.

The class video has these

attributes:

name
number of views
star rating.

The constructor method will set

the name attribute to the name that
is passed in as a parameter. The
constructor will also initially set the
number of views to 0 and the star
rating to 3.

28
(i) Write program code or
pseudocode to declare the class
video and initialise the required
attributes as private.

You should include BOTH the

attribute definitions and the
constructor method in your
answer. [7]

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 ____________________________

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(ii) A public method called

updateviews() will update the
number of views after a video
has been viewed. This method is
defined inside the video class.

Write program code or

pseudocode for the method
updateviews() to increase the
number of views by one.

____________________________

____________________________

____________________________

_________________________ [2]

30
3 (a) (i) Convert the hexadecimal value
B7E to a binary number.

____________________________

_________________________ [1]

(ii) 110010101 is a binary number

that is represented using sign
and magnitude.

Convert this binary number to a

denary number.

____________________________

_________________________ [1]

31
(iii) Complete this binary
subtraction. Both numbers are
8-bit integer values represented
using two’s complement.

Show the result in the same

format and show your working.

0110 1101 –

0011 0100

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____________________________

____________________________

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_________________________ [3]

32
(b) The normalised floating point
number 1010 1110 is stored using
4 bits for the mantissa and 4 bits
for the exponent, both in two’s
complement.

Give the denary version of this

number, showing your working.

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

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_______________________________

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____________________________ [4]

33
 (c) TABLE 3 here shows floating point
numbers that are stored using 6
bits for the mantissa and 3 bits
for the exponent, both in two’s
complement.

Tick (3) one box in each row to

state whether each number is
normalised or not normalised. [4]

TABLE 3

Binary Not
Normalised
number normalised
010101 100
110101 111
011010 010
101010 110

34
4* Amit is studying Computer Science at
university. He has been asked to write
an assignment on Artificial Intelligence
(AI).

Discuss the extent to which you

think computer systems will inherit
the biases and discrimination of
their programmers as the use of AI
increases. [9]

You should include the following in

your answer:

the meaning of AI
examples of when AI may be affected
by bias
the measures that can be taken to
prevent people being affected by bias
in AI.

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BLANK PAGE

39
5 A programmer creates this function
shown in FIG. 5 using a high-level
language.

FIG. 5

function mystery(x,y)

total = x + y

while x >= 10 then

x = x – 10

y = y – 10

total = total + x + y

endwhile

return total

endfunction

40
(a) (i) State the value output by the line
print(mystery(10,20))

____________________________

_________________________ [1]

(ii) State the value output by the line

print(mystery(0,70))

____________________________

_________________________ [1]

(iii) State the value output by the line

print(mystery(45,55))

____________________________

_________________________ [1]

41
(b) Before the code in FIG. 5 can be
executed, a translator must be used.

(i) State the purpose of a translator.

____________________________

_________________________ [1]

(ii) Explain TWO differences

between a compiler and an
interpreter.

Difference 1 _________________

____________________________

____________________________

____________________________

Difference 2 _________________

____________________________

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____________________________
[4]
42
 (c) For each statement shown in
TABLE 5, tick (3) ONE box in each
row to indicate which stage of
compilation each action takes place
at. [5]

TABLE 5
Lexical Syntax Code
analysis analysis generation
Comments
and
whitespace
are removed
Keywords
are replaced
with tokens
Object code
is created
Symbol
table
created for
variables
Builds an
abstract
syntax tree
43
(d) Describe the purpose of code
optimisation.

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

____________________________ [2]

(e) The programmer creates another

function to count and return how
many capital letters are in a string
that is passed into the function as a
parameter.

The asc() function takes in a

character and returns its ASCII
value. For example asc("A")
returns 65. Capital letters have
ASCII values between 65 and 90
inclusive.

(i) Complete the function opposite.

[3]

44
 function countCapitals(text)
// initialise counter to 0
capCount = 0
// loop through each character in the string
passed in
for x = 0 to text.length-1
c = text.subString(x, 1)

45
// check if character is a capital
if asc(c) >= 65 ………………………………………………………
// if so, increment counter
………………………………………………………
endif
next x
………………………………………………………
endfunction
(ii) Give ONE similarity between
ASCII and Unicode.

____________________________

_________________________ [1]

(iii) Give TWO differences between

ASCII and Unicode.

Difference 1 _________________

____________________________

Difference 2 _________________

____________________________
[2]

46
(f)* The programmer has been asked
by a client to create a complex
computer program. Compare the
spiral model and waterfall lifecycle
methodologies for this task. [9]

You should include the following in

your answer:

how both methodologies could

be used to develop a complex
computer program
the benefits of each methodology
for this task
the drawbacks of each methodology
for this task.

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6 Anika’s computer runs a multi-tasking
operating system. She has access
to a printer and a broadband internet
connection through a wireless
connection. The operating system uses
scheduling algorithms such as first
come first served and round-robin.

(a) (i) Explain why the computer’s

operating system uses a first
come first served algorithm
when sending documents to the
printer.

____________________________

____________________________

____________________________

_________________________ [2]

50
(ii) Explain why the computer’s
operating system uses a
round-robin algorithm for
allocating processor time.

____________________________

____________________________

____________________________

____________________________

____________________________

_________________________ [3]

(iii) Describe ONE other scheduling

algorithm.

____________________________

____________________________

____________________________

_________________________ [2]

51
(b) Anika uses an encrypted messaging
program to communicate with her
friends. The computer uses the
TCP/IP stack.

(i) Explain what happens at the

application layer of the TCP/IP
stack when using this program.

____________________________

____________________________

____________________________

____________________________

____________________________

____________________________

____________________________

____________________________

____________________________

_________________________ [5]
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 (ii) Explain what happens at the
link layer (sometimes referred
to as the “network interface
layer”, “network access layer”
or simply the “network layer”) of
the TCP/IP stack when using this
program.

____________________________

____________________________

____________________________

_________________________ [2]

END OF QUESTION PAPER

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ADDITIONAL ANSWER SPACE

If additional space is required, you should

use the following lined page(s). The
question number(s) must be clearly shown
in the margin(s).

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Oxford Cambridge and RSA

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60