M18/4/COMSC/SP1/ENG/TZ0/XX

Computer science
Standard level
Paper 1

Friday 4 May 2018 (afternoon)

1 hour 30 minutes

Instructions to candidates
yyDo not open this examination paper until instructed to do so.
yySection A: answer all questions.
yySection B: answer all questions.
yyThe maximum mark for this examination paper is [70 marks].

2218 – 7014
6 pages © International Baccalaureate Organization 2018
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Section A

Answer all questions.

1. A new computerized system is being planned for a school library.

(a) Describe one method by which systems requirements can be obtained from the
stakeholders.[2]

(b) Outline one reason for providing a prototype for this new system. [2]

2. Outline the role of the memory data register in the machine execution cycle. [2]

3. Calculate how many different colours can be represented using two hexadecimal characters. [2]

4. Explain the importance of the memory management function of an operating system. [3]

5. Construct a logic diagram for the following Boolean expression.

not A or (A and B) [3]

6. Identify two characteristics of a data packet. [2]

7. Explain why protocols are used in network communications. [3]

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8. Consider the following algorithm.

Begin

K = 47
N = 10

YES NO
K mod N < 3

Output K Output K

End K = K div 2

Determine the outputs that will be produced by this algorithm. [3]

9. For an identified application, explain why a binary search would be preferred to a

linear search. [3]

Turn over
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Section B

Answer all questions.

10. A medical centre uses a computer system to manage both patients’ data and appointments.
This system, which is used by the doctors, nurses and secretaries, has two unordered files:
a patients’ file and an appointments’ file, both of which can only be accessed sequentially.

Every evening the following processing takes place:

• a list of appointments for the next day is printed out

• reminders are sent by SMS text messages to the patients’ mobile devices.

(a) Outline the pseudocode that the processing must follow when the system sends out the
text reminders. [5]

(b) Describe two different methods that the medical centre could use that would allow data
to be restored should it be lost for any reason. [4]

The medical centre is concerned about the privacy of the data it is storing and has to make
decisions concerning:

• access to the data stored on this system

• storing the data locally or through the use of a cloud service.

(c) Discuss the issues that should be considered before making these decisions. [6]
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11. A company has expanded its office space into nearby rooms and has decided to set up a
local area network (LAN) to support its operations.

The LAN will connect the room where the server is installed to new computers in the
additional office space. The network engineer produced the following Gantt chart for
this task.

TASK NAME 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Lay ducts for new cables

Lay cables inside the

ducts

Install connectors on wall

of server room

Install connectors on wall

of new office space

Test the cabling

Connect the new

computers with the cabling

(a) Define the term concurrent processing.[1]

(b) Identify two tasks that will be carried out concurrently. [1]

(c) Identify two tasks that will be carried out sequentially. [1]

After 5 years the company decided to replace the LAN with a wireless local area network
(WLAN).

(d) Outline two advantages, to this company, of installing a WLAN. [4]

A WLAN will introduce additional security issues for the company.

(e) Discuss any two of these issues and the ways in which the company might
resolve them. [4]

The company is considering expanding their network to allow employees to connect from
anywhere in the world. The expanded network would need to provide security and allow the
employees full functionality of the internal network.

(f) Explain how setting up a virtual private network (VPN) would provide a
suitable solution. [4]

Turn over
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12. (a) The collection DATA contains the following data:

2, 4, 1, −2, −4, 1, 0

Consider the following pseudocode:

COUNTER = 0
SUM = 0
DATA.resetNext()
loop for X from 0 to 6
if DATA.getNext() > 0
ARRAY[X] = DATA.getNext()
COUNTER = COUNTER + 1
SUM = SUM + ARRAY[X]
end if
end loop
output SUM/COUNTER

Trace the pseudocode using the table below: [4]

X ARRAY[X] COUNTER SUM output

A transport authority is investigating how many people use a certain direct train route, which
is used every day of the week.

At the end of each day, the total number of passengers who travelled on this route is stored
in a collection, PASSENGERS.

The first item was written to the collection on Monday 1st January 2018.

212

The next items, collected on Tuesday and Wednesday, were added like this:

212 454 342

(b) Assuming that the first item read from the collection is from Monday 1st January 2018,
construct pseudocode that will read PASSENGERS into an array, P_ARRAY.[4]

(c) Using P_ARRAY, construct pseudocode to output the day of the week with the highest
average number of passengers. Use the sub procedure convert() which converts
the numbers 0 to 6 into days of the week, for example convert(1) will return “Tuesday”.

Note: you should not assume that data for an exact number of weeks is stored. [7]