Topics from Unit 1

 Structure and function of the processor

o The arithmetic logic unit; ALU, Control Unit and Registers (Program
Counter; PC, Accumulator; ACC, Memory Address Register; MAR,
Memory Data Register; MDR, Current Instruction Register; CIR). Busses:
data, address and control: How this relates to assembly language
program
o The fetch-decode-execute cycle, including its effect on registers
o The factors affecting the performance of CPU, clock speed, number of
cores, cache
o The use of pipelining in a processors to improve efficiency
o Von Neumann, Harvard and contemporary processor architecture

 Types of processor
o The differences between, and uses of, CISC and RISC processors
o GPUs and their uses (including those not related to graphics)
o Multicore and parallel systems

 Input, output and storage

o How different input output and storage devices can be applied as a
solution of different problems
o The uses of magnetic, flash and optical storage devices
o RAM and ROM
o Virtual storage

 Operating systems – Systems software

o The need for, function and purposes of operating systems
o Memory management (paging, segmentation and virtual memory)
o Interrupts, the role of interrupts and Interrupt Service Routines (ISR),
role within the fetch decode execute cycle
o Scheduling: round robin, first come first served, multi-level feedback
queues, shortest job first and shortest remaining time
o Distributed, embedded, multi-tasking, multi-user and real time
operating systems
o BIOS
o Device drivers
o Virtual machines, any instance where software is used to take on the
function of a machine including executing intermediate code or running
an operating system within another

 Software Development
o Understand the waterfall lifecycle, agile methodologies, extreme
programming, the spiral model and rapid application development.
o The relative merits and drawbacks of different methodologies and
when they might be used.
o Writing and following algorithms.

 Application generation
o The nature of applications, justifying suitable applications for a specific
purpose
o Utilities
o Open source vs Closed source
o Translators: interpreters, compilers and assemblers
 o Stages of compilation (Lexical analysis, Syntax analysis, Code
generation and Optimisation)

 Typesof Programming Languages

o Need for and characteristics of a variety of programming paradigms.
o Procedural languages.
o Assembly language (including following and writing simple programs
with the Little Man Computer instruction set). See appendix 5d.
o Modes of addressing memory (immediate, direct, indirect and indexed).
o Object-oriented languages (see appendix 5d for pseudocode style) with
an understanding of classes, objects, methods, attributes, inheritance,
encapsulation and polymorphism.
 Compression, Encryption and hashing
o Lossy vs Lossless compression
o Run length encoding and dictionary coding for lossless compression.
o Symmetric and asymmetric encryption.
o Different uses of hashing.
 Databases
o Relational database, flat file, primary key, foreign key, secondary key,
entity relationship modelling, normalisation and indexing.
o Methods of capturing, selecting, managing and exchanging data

o Normalisation to 3NF.
o SQL – Interpret and modify
o Referential integrity.
o Transaction processing, ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation,
Durability), record locking and redundancy.
 Web technologies
o HTML, CSS and Javascript
o Search engine indexing
o PageRank Algorithm
o Server and client-side processing
 Networks
o Characteristics of networks and the importance of protocols and
standards.
o The internet structure: TCP/IP Stack, DNS, Protocol layering, LANs,
WANs, Packet and circuit switching
o Network security and threats, use of firewalls, proxies and encryption

o Network hardware
o Client-server and peer to peer
 Data Structures
o Arrays (of up to 3 dimensions), records, lists, tuples
o The following structures to store data: linked-list, graph (directed and
undirected), stack, queue, tree, binary search tree, hash table.

o How to create, traverse, add data to and remove data from the data
structures mentioned above.

 Data types
o Primitive data types, integer, real/floating point, character, string and
Boolean
o Represent positive integers in binary
 o Use of sign and magnitude and two's complement to represent
negative numbers in binary
o Addition and subtraction of binary integers
o Represent positive integers in hexadecimal
o Convert positive integers between binary hexadecimal and denary
o Representation and normalisation of floating point numbers in binary
o Floating point arithmetic, positive and negative numbers, addition and
subtraction
o Bitwise manipulation and masks: shifts, combining with AND, OR, and
XOR
o How character sets (ASCII and UNICODE) are used to represent text
 Boolean algebra
o Define problems using Boolean logic
o Manipulate Boolean expressions, including the use of Karnaugh maps
to simplify Boolean expressions
o Use the following rules to derive or simplify statements in Boolean
algebra: De Morgan's Laws, distribution, association, commutation,
double negation
o Using logic gate diagrams and truth tables
o The logic associated with D type flip flops, half and full adders
 Computer related legislation
o The Data Protection Act 1998
o The Computer Misuse Act 1990
o The Copyright Design and Patents Act 1988
o The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000
 Ethical, moral and cultural issues (AS / A Level)
o The individual (moral), social (ethical) and cultural opportunities and
risks of digital technology:
 Computers in the workforce
 Automated decision making
 Artificial intelligence
 Environmental effects
 Censorship and the Internet
 Monitor behaviour
 Analyse personal information
 Piracy and offensive communications
 Layout, colour paradigms and character sets
Topics from Unit 2

 Thinking abstractly
o The nature of abstraction
o The need for abstraction
o The differences between an abstraction and reality
o Devise an abstract model for a variety of situations
 Thinking ahead
o Identify the inputs and outputs for a given situation
o Determine the preconditions for devising a solution to a problem
o The nature, benefits and drawbacks of caching
o The need for reusable program components.
 Thinking procedurally
o Identify the components of a problem
o Identify the components of a solution to a problem
o Determine the order of the steps needed to solve a problem
o Identify sub-procedures necessary to solve a problem
 Thinking logically
o Identify the points in a solution where a decision has to be taken
o Determine the logical conditions that affect the outcome of a decision
o Determine how decisions affect flow through a program
 Thinking concurrently
o Determine the parts of a problem that can be tackled at the same time

o Outline the benefits and trade-offs that might result from concurrent
processing in a particular situation
 Programming techniques
o Programming constructs: sequence, iteration, branching
o Recursion, how it can be used and compares to an iterative approach
o Global and local variables
o Modularity, functions and procedures, parameter passing by value and
reference
o Use of an IDE to develop/debug a program
o Use of object-oriented techniques
 Computational Methods
o Problem recognition
o Problem decomposition
o Use of abstraction
o Use of divide and conquer
o Learners should apply their knowledge of: backtracking, data mining,
heuristics, performance modelling, visualisation to solve problems

 Algorithms
o Analysis and design of algorithms for a given situation
o The suitability or different algorithms for a given task and data set, in
terms of execution time and space
o Measures and methods to determine the efficiency of different
algorithms, Big O notation. (Constant, linear, polynomial, exponential,
and logarithmic complexity)
o Comparison of the complexity of algorithms
o Algorithms for the main data structures, (Stacks, queues, trees, linked
lists, depth-first (post-order) and breadth-first traversal of trees)
o Standard algorithms (Bubble sort, insertion sort, merge sort, quick sort,
Dijkstra's shortest path algorithm, A* algorithms, binary search and
linear search)