Computer Science 9618

Topical Past Papers

Paper 3 - Questions

15.1 Processors, Parallel Processing and Virtual Machines

May/June 2015.P33

1 (c) A company develops software. It provides virtual machines for its software developers. The company has
a large number of clients who use a wide range of hardware and software.

(i) Explain the term virtual machine. Ensure that your answer includes the terms hardware and software. [2]

(ii) Give one benefit to the company of using virtual machines. [1]

(iii) Give one drawback to the company of using virtual machines. [1]

Oct/Nov 2015.P31/P33

4 (a) Three descriptions and two types of processor are shown below.

Draw a line to connect each description to the appropriate type of processor.

[3]

(b) In a RISC processor three instructions (A followed by B, followed by C) are processed using pipelining.

The following table shows the five stages that occur when instructions are fetched and executed.

(i) The ‘A’ in the table indicates that instruction A has been fetched in time interval 1.

Complete the table to show the time interval in which each stage of each instruction (A, B, C) is carried out.

Page 1 of 10
Computer Science 9618
Topical Past Papers
Paper 3 - Questions

15.1 Processors, Parallel Processing and Virtual Machines

[3]

(ii) The completed table shows how pipelining allows instructions to be carried out more rapidly. Each time
interval represents one clock cycle.

Calculate how many clock cycles are saved by the use of pipelining in the above example.

Show your working. [3]

Oct/Nov 2015.P32

4 (a) Four descriptions and four types of computer architecture are shown below.

Draw a line to connect each description to the appropriate type of computer architecture.

[4]

Page 2 of 10
Computer Science 9618
Topical Past Papers
Paper 3 - Questions

15.1 Processors, Parallel Processing and Virtual Machines

(b) In a massively parallel computer explain what is meant by:

(i) Massive [1]

(ii) Parallel [1]

(c) There are both hardware and software issues that have to be considered for parallel processing to
succeed.

Describe one hardware and one software issue. [4]

Oct/Nov 2017.P31/P33

2 (a) The following diagram shows four descriptions and four types of computer architecture.

Draw lines to connect each description to the appropriate computer architecture.

[4]

(b) A computer has a single processor that contains four processing units.

Explain why this is not an example of a massively parallel computer. [2]

Page 3 of 10
Computer Science 9618
Topical Past Papers
Paper 3 - Questions

15.1 Processors, Parallel Processing and Virtual Machines

(c) An application has previously executed on a single computer. The application will be transferred onto a
massively parallel computer.

The program code used in the application will need to be updated to ensure that the power of the massively
parallel computer is fully used.

Explain what changes will be required to the program code. [2]

(d) Explain one of the hardware issues that will have to be overcome if a massively parallel computer is to
function successfully. [2]

Oct/Nov 2017.P32

2 (a) The following diagram shows four descriptions and two types of processor.

Draw lines to connect each description to the appropriate type of processor.

[4]

(b) In a RISC processor, instructions are processed using pipelining.

(i) Explain what is meant by pipelining. [2]

Page 4 of 10
Computer Science 9618
Topical Past Papers
Paper 3 - Questions

15.1 Processors, Parallel Processing and Virtual Machines

(ii) The following table shows the five stages that occur when instructions are fetched and executed. The
table also shows a number of time intervals.

Two instructions, D followed by E, are fetched and executed. The ‘E’ in the incomplete table shows that
instruction E has been fetched in time interval 2.

Complete each row of the table.

[3]

(c) The instruction set for a RISC processor that allows pipelining includes the following instruction.

A program contains the following three instructions.

ADD r3, r2, r1

ADD r5, r4, r3

ADD r10, r9, r8

(i) Explain why pipelining fails for the first two instructions. [2]

(ii) The instructions were produced by a compiler after translation of a high-level language program.

The compiler is not capable of code optimisation.

State how the code from the compiler could have been optimised to overcome the problem in part (c)(i). [1]

Page 5 of 10
Computer Science 9618
Topical Past Papers
Paper 3 - Questions

15.1 Processors, Parallel Processing and Virtual Machines

3 (a) This diagram shows how applications P, Q and a software development environment can be run on a
virtual machine system.

(i) State the operating systems labelled A and B in the diagram. [2]

(ii) Application P is executing and requests data from a file.

Describe what happens after .......A...... operating system 1 has received the data request from the
application. [3]

(b) A software development company uses virtual machines to produce software.

(i) State one benefit to the company. [1]

(ii) Explain two limitations of this approach. [4]

Page 6 of 10
Computer Science 9618
Topical Past Papers
Paper 3 - Questions

15.1 Processors, Parallel Processing and Virtual Machines

Oct/Nov 2018.P31/P33

5 A computer process can be in one of three states: running, ready or blocked.

(a) Explain how the processes are affected when the following events take place.

(i) The running process needs to read a file from a disk. [2]

(ii) The running process uses up its time slice. [2]

(b)(i) State the conditions that are necessary for a process to move from the ready to the running state. [2]

(ii) State the conditions that are necessary for a process to move from the blocked to the ready state. [2]

(c) Give three reasons why process scheduling is needed. [3]

Oct/Nov 2018.P32

5 (a) Most desktop or laptop computers use CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computing) architecture. Most
smartphones and tablets use RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computing).

State four features that are different for the CISC and RISC architectures. [4]

(b) In a RISC processor, four instructions (A, B, C, D) are processed using pipelining.

The following table shows five stages that take place when instructions are fetched and executed. In time
interval 1, instruction A has been fetched.

(i) In the table, write the instruction labels (A, B, C, D) in the correct time interval for each stage. Each
operation only takes one time interval.

[3]

Page 7 of 10
Computer Science 9618
Topical Past Papers
Paper 3 - Questions

15.1 Processors, Parallel Processing and Virtual Machines

(ii) When completed, the table in part (b)(i) shows how pipelining allows instructions to be carried out more
rapidly. Each time interval represents one clock cycle.

Calculate how many clock cycles are saved by using pipelining in the example in part (b)(i).

Show your working. [3]

(c) The table shows four statements about computer architecture.

Put a tick (✓) in each row to identify the computer architecture associated with each statement.

[4]

Page 8 of 10
Computer Science 9618
Topical Past Papers
Paper 3 - Questions

15.1 Processors, Parallel Processing and Virtual Machines

May/June 2019.P32

7 (a) RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computing) and CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computing) are two types of
processor.

Tick one box in each row to show if the statement applies to RISC or CISC processors.

[3]

(b) In parallel processing, a computer can have multiple processors running in parallel.

(i) State the four basic computer architectures used in parallel processing. [4]

(ii) Describe what is meant by a massively parallel computer. [3]

Oct/Nov 2019.P31/P33

9 (b) State three characteristics of massively parallel computers. [3]

May/June 2020.P31/P32/P33

5 Complete these three statements about computer processors.

A processor with a few simple fixed-length instructions that have a small number of instruction formats is
called a ............................................................................................. processor.

A processor with many complex variable-length instructions that has many instruction formats is called a
............................................................................................. processor.

Page 9 of 10
Computer Science 9618
Topical Past Papers
Paper 3 - Questions

15.1 Processors, Parallel Processing and Virtual Machines

Instruction-level parallelism, applied to the execution of instructions during the fetch-execute cycle, is called
............................................................................................. .
[3]

Oct/Nov 2020.P31/P33

5 Complete these statements about a virtual machine.

A virtual machine is ................................................ that emulates a ................................................ computer

system.

A virtual machine allows multiple ................................................ operating systems to run on one computer
using a ................................................ operating system.
[4]

Oct/Nov 2021.P32

7 A virtual machine is the software emulation of a computer system using another computer system.

Describe two benefits and two limitations of using a virtual machine. [4]

Page 10 of 10