Cambridge Assessment International Education

Cambridge International Advanced Subsidiary and Advanced Level

* 1 2 0 9 8 6 7 3 0 8 *

COMPUTER SCIENCE 9608/22

Paper 2 Fundamental Problem-solving and Programming Skills October/November 2019
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 18 printed pages and 2 blank pages.

DC (ST) 171121/3
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1 Study the following pseudocode.

PROCEDURE FillTank()

DECLARE Tries : INTEGER

DECLARE Full : BOOLEAN

Tries 1

Full ReadSensor("F1")

IF NOT Full
THEN
WHILE NOT Full AND Tries < 4
CALL TopUp()
Full ReadSensor("F1")
Tries Tries + 1
ENDWHILE
IF Tries > 3
THEN
OUTPUT "Too many attempts"
ELSE
OUTPUT "Tank now full"
ENDIF
ELSE
OUTPUT "Already full"
ENDIF

ENDPROCEDURE

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

State three such features.

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

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

Feature 3 ...........................................................................................................................
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(ii) Draw a program flowchart to represent the algorithm implemented in the pseudocode.
Variable declarations are not required in program flowcharts.

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(b) (i) Programming languages support different data types.

Complete the table by giving a suitable data type for each example value.

Example value Data type

43

TRUE

− 273.16

"− 273.16"

[4]

(ii) Evaluate each expression in the following table.

If an expression is invalid then write ‘ERROR’.

Refer to the Appendix on page 18 for the list of built-in functions and operators.

Expression Evaluates to

RIGHT("Stop", 3) & LEFT("ich", 2)

MID(NUM_TO_STRING(2019), 3, 1)

INT(NUM_TO_STRING(-273.16))

INT(13/2)

[4]

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2 (a) Describe the program development cycle with reference to the following:

• source code
• object code
• corrective maintenance.

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(b) Give three features of an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that can help with
initial error detection while writing the program.

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

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3 A student is developing a program to search through a string of numeric digits to count how many
times each digit occurs. The variable InString will store the string and the 1D array Result will
store the count values.

The program will:

• check each character in the string to count how many times each digit occurs
• record the count for each digit using the array
• output the count for each element of the array together with the corresponding digit.

(a) The array Result is a 1D array of type INTEGER.

Write pseudocode to declare the array and to initialise all elements to zero.

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(b) Write the pseudocode for the program.

Declare any variables you use. Do not implement the code as a subroutine.

Refer to the Appendix on page 18 for the list of built-in functions and operators.

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4 A program is being written to control the operation of a portable music player. One part of the
program controls the output volume.

The player has two buttons, one to increase the volume and one to decrease it. Whenever a
button is pressed, a procedure Button() is called with a parameter value representing the button
as follows:

Button Parameter value

Volume increase 10

Volume decrease 20

For example, pressing the volume increase button three times followed by pressing the volume
decrease button once would result in the calls:

CALL Button(10) // VolLevel increased by 1

CALL Button(10) // VolLevel increased by 1
CALL Button(10) // VolLevel increased by 1
CALL Button(20) // VolLevel decreased by 1

The program makes use of two global variables of type INTEGER as follows:

Variable Description
VolLevel The current volume setting. This must be in the range 0 to 49.
A value that can be set to limit the maximum value of VolLevel,
in order to protect the user’s hearing.
MaxVol
A value in the range 1 to 49 indicates the volume limit.
A value of zero indicates that no volume limit has been set.

The procedure Button() will modify the value of VolLevel depending on which button has
been pressed and whether a maximum value has been set.

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(a) Write pseudocode for the procedure Button(). Declare any additional variables you use.

The value of MaxVol should not be changed within the procedure.

Parameter validation is not necessary.

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(b) The procedure Button() is to be tested using black-box testing.

Fill in the gaps below to define three tests that could be carried out.

TEST 1 – VolLevel is changed

Parameter value: 10

MaxVol: ..................

VolLevel value before call to Button(): 48

VolLevel expected value after call to Button(): ..................

TEST 2 – VolLevel is not changed

Parameter value: 10

MaxVol: 34

VolLevel value before call to Button(): ..................

VolLevel expected value after call to Button(): ..................

TEST 3 – VolLevel is not changed

Parameter value: ..................

MaxVol: 40

VolLevel value before call to Button(): 0

VolLevel expected value after call to Button(): ..................

[6]

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(c) The testing stage is part of the program development cycle.

(i) The program for the music player has been completed. The program does not contain
any syntax errors, but testing could reveal further errors.

Identify and describe one different type of error that testing could reveal.

Type ..................................................................................................................................

Description ........................................................................................................................

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(ii) Stub testing is a technique often used in the development of modular programs.

Describe the technique.

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5 The module headers for three modules in a program are defined in pseudocode as follows:

Pseudocode module header

PROCEDURE Lookup(P4 : INTEGER, BYREF M4 : STRING)
FUNCTION Update(T4 : INTEGER) RETURNS INTEGER
FUNCTION Validate(S2 : INTEGER, P3 : STRING) RETURNS BOOLEAN

A fourth module, Renew(), calls the three modules in the following sequence.

Validate()
Lookup()
Update()

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

[7]

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Question 6 begins on the next page.

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6 A text file, StudentList.txt, contains a list of information about students in a school.

Each line of the file contains a reference, name and date of birth for one student. All the information
is held as strings and separated by the asterisk character ('*') as follows:

<Reference>'*'<Name>'*'<Date Of Birth>

An example of one line from the file is:

"G1234*Aleza Hilton*05062001"

The reference string may be five or eight characters in length and is unique for each student. It is
made up of alphabetic and numeric characters only.

A global 1D array, Leavers, contains the references of all students who have recently left the
school. The array consists of 500 elements of data type STRING. Unused elements contain the
empty string "".

A program is to be written to produce a new text file, UpdatedList.txt, containing information

only for students who are still attending the school.

The program is to be implemented as several modules. The outline description of three of these is
as follows:

Module Outline description

• Read each line from the file StudentList.txt
• Check whether the Reference appears in the
array using SearchLeavers()
ProcessStudentList()
• If the Reference does not appear then write the
line to the file UpdatedList.txt
• Return the number of lines not copied.
• Search for a given Reference in the array Leavers
SearchLeavers() • If the Reference is found, return TRUE, otherwise
return FALSE
• Take two parameters: the name of an array and a
string.
CountTimes()
• Count the number of elements that are the same as
the string. Return the count value.

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(a) Write program code for the module SearchLeavers(). Declare any additional variables
you use.

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

The module description is repeated here for reference.

Module Outline description

• Read each line from the file StudentList.txt
• Check whether the Reference appears in the
array using SearchLeavers()
ProcessStudentList()
• If the Reference does not appear then write the
line to the file UpdatedList.txt
• Return the number of lines not copied.

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(c) CountTimes() is to be used to count how many unused elements there are in the Leavers
array. An unused element is one that contains an empty string.

The module description is repeated here for reference.

Module Outline description

• Take two parameters: the name of an array and a
string.
CountTimes()
• Count the number of elements that are the same as
the string. Return the count value.

Write a statement in program code that uses CountTimes() to assign the count of unused
elements to the variable Result.

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 "BCD"

LENGTH(ThisString : STRING) RETURNS INTEGER

returns the integer value representing the length of 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 "ABC"

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

returns rightmost x characters from ThisString

Example: RIGHT("ABCDEFGH", 3) returns "FGH"

INT(x : REAL) RETURNS INTEGER

returns the integer part of x

Example: INT(27.5415) returns 27

NUM_TO_STRING(x : REAL) RETURNS STRING

returns a string representation of a numeric value.
Note: This function will also work if x is of type INTEGER

Example: NUM_TO_STRING(87.5) returns "87.5"

STRING_TO_NUM(x : STRING) RETURNS REAL

returns a numeric representation of a string.
Note: This function will also work if x is of type CHAR

Example: STRING_TO_NUM("23.45") returns 23.45

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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