BCS THE CHARTERED INSTITUTE FOR IT
BCS HIGHER EDUCATION QUALIFICATIONS
BCS Level 4 Certificate in IT
SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
Wednesday 19th April 2023 – Afternoon
Time: TWO hours
Section A and Section B each carry 50% of the marks.
You are advised to spend about 1 hour on Section A (30 minutes per question)
and 1 hour on Section B (12 minutes per question).
Answer any Section A questions you attempt in Answer Book A
Answer any Section B questions you attempt in Answer Book B
The marks given in brackets are indicative of the weight given to each part of the question.
Calculators are NOT allowed in this examination.
Section A B9.
Answer 2 questions (out of 4). Each question carries 30 marks.
Compare and contrast each of the following pairs of related terms:
A1.
i) Tuple vs List;
Consider the following algorithm for converting a decimal number into a binary number: ii) Operating System vs Application Software;
iii) Command Line and Graphical User Interface.
x Obtain a decimal number from the user and store it in an integer variable named (12 marks)
N.
x Perform an integer division to divide this number by 2 and store the result in N.
x Store the remainder in the next available position in an array. B10.
x Repeat the above two steps while N is greater than zero.
a) Give a definition of each of the following program control structures: sequence,
The result is obtained by printing the array in reverse order. selection and iteration.
(3 marks)
a) Trace the steps in this algorithm to show what happens step-by-step when the initial
decimal number is 10. b) Using example code (in any language with which you are familiar) describe THREE
(10 marks) different types of iteration/looping statements.
(6 marks)
b) Provide code in a language of your choice that shows how this algorithm might be
implemented as a function or procedure. Your answer should include the code c) Explain using an example what is meant by an infinite loop in a computer program.
necessary to invoke the function or procedure. This will prompt the user for a (3 marks)
decimal value and output the answer as 8 binary digits. You can assume that the
user will only enter values of N in the range 0 <= N <= 255.
(10 marks) B11.
c) With respect to this example, explain the difference between calling a function by a) What is acceptance testing and what are the expected outcomes of acceptance testing
value and by reference. from a software developer perspective?
(5 marks) (6 marks)
d) Explain the difference between functions and procedures. b) Explain the concept of software maintenance and briefly outline the role of software
(5 marks) maintenance during the lifetime of a software product.
(6 marks)
A2. B12.
a) Describe the key principles and controls used by interface designers in each of the a) Describe the characteristics of a CSV file.
following areas: (4 marks)
i) Navigation design; (6 marks)
ii) Input design; (6 marks) b) A given CSV file contains three values in each line in the file. Use pseudocode to
iii) Output design. (6 marks) design a program which searches sequentially through the file reading one
row/record at a time for a particular value in the first field. If the value matches the
b) Outline the key techniques that a software developer can employ to evaluate the search value, it adds 1 to a running total. The running total is output when all
usability of a User Interface. rows/records have been read and searched.
(8 marks)
(12 marks)
END OF EXAMINATION
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B6. A3.
Consider the following lists of data. You can assume these represent a small sample of larger Consider the following diagram:
data sets:
List1: 3 16 13 9 15 12 2 10 14 8 7 1 6 4 11 ... …
List2: 14 1 5 6 13 12 3 11 15 4 7 8 10 2 16 … …
Also consider the following processing tasks (Task1 and Task2) on the above lists:
Task1: Find data elements from list 1 that are also present on list 2.
Task2: Merge the two lists to remove duplicate values.
a) Outline in no more than TWO sentences why it is beneficial to sort the lists of data
before carrying out Task1 above.
(2 marks)
b) Describe using pseudocode how Task1 is processed using sorted lists of data. The circle shown has a radius of 1. The area of the circle can be calculated using the
(6 marks) formula ߨ ݎଶ and is therefore equal to ߨ.
c) Describe the Big O notation and briefly explain how, in this case, it indicates that using
Consider the top right-hand quadrant of the diagram. A quarter of the circle is in this
sorted data would increase the speed of processing of Task2.
quadrant with area .25ߨ. The square in this quadrant has a side which is one unit in length.
(4 marks)
Therefore, the area of the square is 1.
Consider a point x, y where 0 <= x <= 1 and 0 <= y <= 1.
B7.
మ
Write short notes on the following software utilities and explain the association (if any) they The distance from the centre of the circle to the point x, y is given by:ඥ ݔଶ + ݕଶ
have with each other during software execution:
If this distance is less or equal to 1 the point x, y is within the circle, if it is greater than 1 it is
i) Linker; (3 marks) outside the circle. Given the possible values for x and y, every point x, y will lie within the
ii) Loader; (3 marks) square.
iii) Compiler; (3 marks)
iv) Interpreter. (3 marks) If a set of points are created by selecting random values of x and y, some of these points will
lie within the circle quadrant whilst the others lie within the square but outside the circle
quadrant. If the values are truly random then, as more points are generated, the number of
B8. points within the circle quadrant divided by the total number of points generated will
approach the value calculated by dividing the area of the quadrant by the area of the square.
You have been asked to debug a computer program, that was written by someone other As already stated, this number is .25ߨ/1 = .25ߨ.
than yourself, that compiles and runs but does not work as expected.
a) Given a function random() which returns a random number n, such that 0 <= n <= 1,
a) Write out the steps you would take to debug the program if you only had the following write a program which calculates an approximate value of ߨ.
documentation available: (20 marks)
x Print outs of the Source code; b) Explain how you might test this code and state whether a white box or a black box
x Screen shots showing the program execution; testing methodology would be appropriate.
x A flowchart outlining the program design; (5 marks)
x Results of running unit tests on different parts of the code.
c) What factors might influence the accuracy of the output from the program?
(6 marks)
(5 marks)
b) Explain the role of black box testing and give a couple of examples of documentation
arising from black box testing that could be used to help debug the program.
(6 marks)
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A4. Section B
Answer 5 questions (out of 8). Each question carries 12 marks.
a) What techniques should a programmer use to make their code as readable as
possible?
(10 marks) B5.
b) Explain the difference between user documentation and system documentation. A geometric progression is a sequence of terms in which each term is a constant multiple of
(10 marks) the preceding term.
c) Discuss the design issues you would consider when constructing a web site to 2, 6, 18, 54, 162 is an example of a geometric progression.
document a software system.
(10 marks) This can be expressed algebraically as follows:
ar0, ar1, ar2, …………., arn-1
Where “a” is the initial value, “r” is the common ratio and “n” is the number of terms. In the
example above a = 2, r = 3 and n = 5.
a) State the values of a, r and n for the following geometric progression:
64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2, 1, 0.5
(2 marks)
b) Write a function called fnSumofGP(a ,r, n) that returns the SUM of the terms that form
the geometric progression, where a, r and n are the required input parameters of the
function. For example, using geometric progression in part a) above, the SUM returned
is: 127.50
(5 marks)
c) Write a program that checks if n >=1000 and r is between -1 and +1. If TRUE, the SUM
of a geometric progression is computed using the following expression.
SUM = a / (1-r)
If FALSE, the program calls the function fnSumOfGP as described in part b).
(5 marks)
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