Quiz

BuzzFeed Staff

Science

Knowing how to use Word and Excel won't save you now.

Can You Pass Computer Science GCSE Right Now?

That means that nearly a third of pupils in England don't have access to the subject at GCSE level. And of those that can and do take the Computer Science GCSE, only 1 in 5 are girls.(To find out how your area fares, see a map <a href="https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/computing-education/" target="_blank">here</a>.)

And if all of the questions were based on <a href="http://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/computer-science-and-it/gcse/computer-science-8520/assessment-resources" target="_blank">real exam papers</a>, but highly simplified, and multiple choice? There's only one way to find out...

It saves the programmer time.

Here's a computer program written in high-level language compared with one written in a low-level language. Which of the following statements is an advantage of using a high-level language?

Decimal is the counting system we use in everyday life, and is base 10. Binary is base 2. To convert from binary to decimal, start by writing out the binary place values: 128, 64, 32, 12, 8, 2, 1. Then compare to the 0s and 1s in the binary number, writing down the place values where there's a 1 instead of a 0. Finally, add those numbers up. In this case that gives you 64 + 8 + 4 + 2 = 78.

What is the bit pattern shown below when converted to decimal?

Hexadecimal is a base 16 number system. It uses the digits 0 to 9 as well as the letters A to F. In HTML, colours are represented by six digit hexadecimal numbers. For example, FFFFFF represents white. In this question, 0100 in binary converts to 4 in hexadecimal, and 1110 converts to E.

What is the same bit pattern converted to hexadecimal?

70 is five on from 65, and F is five on from A.

In the coding system ASCII the character A is represented by the numeric code 65. Which character is represented by the numeric code 70?

Unicode actually uses more bits to represent each character, which is how it manages to represent a much wider range of characters, including those from languages other than English, and scientific and technical characters. ASCII only represents English language characters.

"Unicode uses fewer bits to represent each character."

Which of the following statements is NOT an advantage of using Unicode to represent characters instead of ASCII?

Buses transfer data between components inside a computer.

Which of these is used to connect different components of a computer's Central Processing Unit (CPU)?

Volatile memory only retains information while a computer is turned on. If power is lost, so is the stored data. RAM, or random-access memory, is volatile, but ROM, or read-only memory is not.

Which of these two types of computer memory is described as "volatile"?

IMAP stands for Internet Message Access Protocol.

IMAP

Which of the following is the most suitable protocol to use to retrieve email stored on a server?

HTTPS stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure, and is the secure version of HTTP. On HTTPS all communications between your browser and the website you're on are encrypted.

HTTPS

Which of the following is the most suitable protocol to use to make a payment securely when buying something from a website?

Run-length encoding is a form of lossless compression.

It will not lose any of the original data.

Which of the following statements about run length encoding is true?

Maybe it's because you're not cut out for computer science, or maybe it's because you've had literally no lessons on it ever? Chalk it up to inexperience, and try again once you've hit the books (or computer).

You failed :(

Well, you got over 50% so lets call it a pass. You still have more to learn though.

You passed!

Top marks, congratulations. You're a computer whizz.

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Can You Pass Computer Science GCSE Right Now?

A report out today from the Royal Society finds that 54% of English schools do not offer a GCSE in computer science.

So... would you pass a GCSE in computer science if you had to take it right now?

Can You Pass Computer Science GCSE Right Now?

A report out today from the Royal Society finds that 54% of English schools do not offer a GCSE in computer science.

So... would you pass a GCSE in computer science if you had to take it right now?

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