Cambridge International Examinations

Cambridge International Advanced Subsidiary and Advanced Level

* 6 2 6 4 9 0 5 1 5 3 *

COMPUTER SCIENCE 9608/21

Paper 2 Fundamental Problem-solving and Programming Skills May/June 2018
2 hours
Candidates answer on the Question Paper.
No Additional Materials are required.
No calculators allowed.

READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST

Write your Centre number, candidate number and name in the spaces at the top of this page.
Write in dark blue or black pen.
You may use an HB pencil for any diagrams, graphs or rough working.
Do not use staples, paper clips, glue or correction fluid.
DO NOT WRITE IN ANY BARCODES.

Answer all questions.

No marks will be awarded for using brand names of software packages or hardware.

At the end of the examination, fasten all your work securely together.
The number of marks is given in brackets [ ] at the end of each question or part question.

The maximum number of marks is 75.

This document consists of 15 printed pages and 1 blank page.

DC (LK/CGW) 146140/3
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Question 1 begins on the next page.

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1 (a) A program stores data about hospital patients.

Give a suitable identifier name for each of the data items.

Description of data item Suitable identifier name

The temperature of the patient
The temperature of the room
The patient identification number
The name of the nurse taking the measurement
[4]

(b) (i) Program variables have values as follows:

Variable Value
MyGreeting "Happy Birthday"
MyInitial 'C'
AgeInYears 27
Weight 60.5
Married TRUE
Children TRUE

Evaluate each expression in the following table.

If an expression is invalid, write ERROR.

For the built-in functions list, refer to the Appendix on page 15.

Expression Evaluates to
"Mon" & MID(MyGreeting, 10, 2)
AgeInYears + ASC(MyInitial)
INT(MyInitial)
MOD(Weight * 2, 10)
Married AND (NOT Children)
[5]

(ii) Programming languages support different data types.

Give an appropriate data type for each of these variables from part (b)(i).

Variable Data type

MyGreeting
MyInitial
AgeInYears
Weight
Married
[5]
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2 The following is a function design in pseudocode.

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 DECLARE MyString : STRING
07
08 OutString ""
09
10 FOR Counter 1 TO LENGTH(InString)
11
12 NextChar MID(InString,Counter,1)
13 NextChar LCASE(NextChar)
14
15 IF (NextChar >= 'a') AND (NextChar <= 'z')
16
17 THEN
18
19 OutString OutString & NextChar
20
21 ENDIF
22
23 ENDFOR
24
25 RETURN OutString
26
27 ENDFUNCTION

(a) (i) This pseudocode includes features that make it easier to read and understand.

State four such features.

Feature 1 ...........................................................................................................................

Feature 2 ...........................................................................................................................

Feature 3 ...........................................................................................................................

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

(ii) State one feature that could be added to make the pseudocode easier to understand.

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

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(b) Study the function StringClean(). Identify the features of the function in the following
table.

Feature Answer

A line number containing an example of an assignment statement

A line number containing the start of a repetition block

A line number containing the end of a repetition block

A line number containing the start of a selection statement

The number of parameters of the MID function

The Boolean operator used

The number of local variables

The number of function calls from within StringClean()
resulting from the call:
NewString StringClean("Me")
The number of a line containing an unnecessary statement
[9]

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3 In a chemical factory, a procedure, CheckSensor() is required to allow an operator to monitor

the temperature in different locations.

In the factory:

• the temperature is measured by 10 sensors, each at a different location

• each sensor has a unique ID (1 to 10).

The procedure CheckSensor() will compare the measured temperature against each of two
constant values, LowTemp and HighTemp. It will perform the following actions depending on the
result of the comparison.

Measured temperature Action

below LowTemp Output "Cold"
from LowTemp to HighTemp Output "Normal"
above HighTemp Call procedure Alarm()

A library function, GetTemp(), returns the temperature value from a given sensor.

The structured English representing the algorithm for the procedure CheckSensor() is as
follows:

1. Prompt for the input of a sensor ID.

2. Input a sensor ID.
3. If the sensor ID is invalid, repeat from step 1.
4. Call the GetTemp() function with the sensor ID as the parameter, to obtain the relevant
temperature.
5. Compare the temperature against the two constant values and take the appropriate action.

Draw a program flowchart on the next page to represent the algorithm for procedure
CheckSensor().

Variable declarations are not required in program flowcharts.

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[8]
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4 (a) A structure chart is used in modular program design.

Iteration and selection are two features of an algorithm that may be shown on a structure chart.

Give three other features.

Feature 1 ..................................................................................................................................

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Feature 2 ..................................................................................................................................

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Feature 3 ..................................................................................................................................

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[3]

(b) Pseudocode for a function is shown.

FUNCTION ItemProcess (AddItem, InString : STRING) RETURNS BOOLEAN

DECLARE RetFlag : BOOLEAN
RetFlag FALSE

IF AddItem = "Yes"
THEN
RetFlag AddToList(InString)
ELSE
CALL RemoveFromList(InString)
ENDIF

RETURN RetFlag

ENDFUNCTION

Draw a structure chart on the next page to represent this pseudocode.

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[6]

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5 A golf club holds information about its members. When a member completes a round of golf, their
score is stored along with their membership number and the date of the round.

(a) Explain why the club stores these data in a file rather than an array.

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

(b) Editing functions such as cut, copy and paste are features provided by an Integrated
Development Environment (IDE).

Give two additional features of an IDE that are helpful when coding a program.

Feature 1 ..................................................................................................................................

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

Feature 2 ..................................................................................................................................

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

(c) The information is stored in a text file, ScoreDetails.txt. The format of each line of the
text file is as follows:

<MembershipNumber><Date><Score>

• MembershipNumber is a four-digit numeric string.

• Date is a six-digit numeric string in the format DDMMYY
• Score is a two-digit numeric string in the range "50" to "99".

A procedure, AddNewScores(), is being developed. This will allow the user to enter scores
for several members on a particular date.

The procedure, AddNewScores(), will perform the following actions:

1. Prompt for the date of the scores.

2. Input the date of the scores.
3. Prompt for the membership number.
4. Input the membership number.
5. If the membership number is an empty string then end the procedure.
6. Prompt for the score.
7. Input the score.
8. Validate the score.
9. If the validation fails then repeat from step 6.
10. Form a text string from the data and write this to the ScoreDetails.txt file.
11. Repeat from step 3.

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Write program code for the AddNewScores() procedure.

Visual Basic and Pascal: You should include the declaration statements for variables.
Python: You should show a comment statement for each variable used with its data type.

Programming language ....................................................................................................................

Program code

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6 (a) The following pseudocode includes references to a 1D array.

DECLARE StudentGrade : ARRAY[1:5] OF CHAR

DECLARE n : INTEGER
DECLARE x : CHAR

n 3
x StudentGrade[n]

(i) Use the correct technical terms to explain the meaning of [1:5] in this pseudocode.

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

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

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

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

(ii) Use the correct technical term to complete the following statement.

Integer n is used as the ........................................ to StudentGrade. [1]

(b) A 2D array, Picture, contains data representing a bitmap image. Each element of the array
represents one pixel of the image. The image is grey-scale encoded where the value of each
pixel ranges from 0 (representing black) to 255 (representing white) with intermediate values
representing different levels of grey.

The following is an example of an image and the corresponding data values for the Picture
array.

Bitmap image Values

240 10 10 10 10 10 10 240

80 80 240 80 80 240 80 80

80 80 240 80 80 240 80 80

80 80 150 150 150 150 80 80

80 80 240 240 240 240 80 80

80 80 150 150 150 150 80 80

240 240 150 150 150 150 240 240

240 240 150 150 150 150 240 240

In pseudocode, the array is declared as follows:

DECLARE Picture : ARRAY[1:8, 1:8] OF INTEGER

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A function, Lighten(), is required to lighten the image. Lightening an image may cause it to
‘burn out’. An image is said to be ‘burnt out’ if any pixel is set to the maximum value of 255.

The function Lighten() will:

1. increase the value of each pixel by 10%

2. return TRUE if the resultant image is ‘burnt out’.

Write pseudocode to implement the Lighten() function.

Assume that the array Picture is a global variable.

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7 A function, ProcessMarks(), is required to analyse test marks for a class of students.

• There are 20 students in the class.

• A mark is between 0 and 100.
• The marks for the class are stored in an array, Mark, which has 20 elements.
• The array is passed to the function as a parameter.
• The function will output a message stating the average and highest marks. For example:
"The average mark is 34 and the highest mark is 76"
• The function returns the subscript of the highest mark.

Write program code to implement the ProcessMarks() function.

Visual Basic and Pascal: You should include the declaration statements for variables.
Python: You should show a comment statement for each variable used with its data type.

Programming language ....................................................................................................................

Program code

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Appendix
Built-in functions (pseudocode)
Each function returns an error if the function call is not properly formed.

MID(ThisString : STRING, x : INTEGER, y : INTEGER) RETURNS STRING

returns a string of length y starting at position x from ThisString

Example: MID("ABCDEFGH", 2, 3) returns string "BCD"

LENGTH(ThisString : STRING) RETURNS INTEGER

returns the integer value representing the length of string ThisString

Example: LENGTH("Happy Days") returns 10

LEFT(ThisString : STRING, x : INTEGER) RETURNS STRING

returns leftmost x characters from ThisString

Example: LEFT("ABCDEFGH", 3) returns string "ABC"

LCASE(ThisChar : CHAR) RETURNS CHAR

returns the character value representing the lower case equivalent of ThisChar

If ThisChar is not an upper-case alphabetic character then it is returned unchanged.

Example: LCASE('W') returns 'w'

INT(x : REAL) RETURNS INTEGER

returns the integer part of x

Example: INT(27.5415) returns 27

ASC(ThisChar : CHAR) RETURNS INTEGER

returns the ASCII value of character ThisChar

Example: ASC('A') returns 65

MOD(ThisNum : INTEGER, ThisDiv : INTEGER) RETURNS INTEGER

returns the integer value representing the remainder when ThisNum is divided by ThisDiv

Example: MOD(10,3) returns 1

Operators (pseudocode)

Operator Description
Concatenates (joins) two strings
&
Example: "Summer" & " " & "Pudding" produces "Summer Pudding"
Performs a logical AND on two Boolean values
AND
Example: TRUE AND FALSE produces FALSE
Performs a logical OR on two Boolean values
OR
Example: TRUE OR FALSE produces TRUE

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