iGCSE Data Types

Learning Objectives
By the end of this lesson you will be able to:
Identify different data types
Select appropriate data types for a given set of data

1. Which of the following can be stored as LOGICAL/BOOLEAN

data and WHY?
Field Name

Example
Data
19/07/196
5

Boolean
or not?

Date of birth

no

Door status

Open

yes

Number of
staples

34

no

Has 4 legs

Yes

yes

Reason
It can only be one of the
two available values.
Because you can open and
close a door.
Because it can only be 1
or 0.
Because it is an example
and table has 4 legs.

2. Select a data type and explain why youve chosen it for each
field in the table below.
Field Name

Example
Data

Title

Mr/Mrs

Phone Number

Data Type

Reason

Boolean

Because its you can only

choose one of the values.

0121 222
9999

Alphanume
ric

Because alphanumeric
includes a phone number.

Gender

Boolean

Because it is one of the

two available values.

Date of Birth

01/01/190
0

Date

Because it has the day,

month and year.

Country

Germany

Alphanume
ric

Because it has letters and

is a text.

3. Explain the advantages of storing a yes/no question as

BOOLEAN instead of ALPHANUMERIC.
Because people will understand it better and you can only choose one of the
answers.
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4. Explain why there is a need to have more than one format

available for storing the date.

iGCSE Data Types

_____________________________________So that you can store different data and
that you can access different data as
well._______________________________________________
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