ADMISSION
NUMBER
DATE
MONTHLY TEST - JANUARY 2023
GRADE 9 (EDEXCEL)
COMPUTER SCIENCE
Duration : 2 periods
Instructions
• Use black ink or ball-point pen.
• Fill in the boxes at the top of this page with your admission number and date.
• Answer ALL questions.
• Answer the questions in the spaces provided
– there may be more space than you need.
Information
• The total mark for this paper is 60.
• The marks for each question are shown in brackets
– use this as a guide as to how much time to spend on each question.
• Calculators are not allowed.
Advice
• Read each question carefully before you start to answer it.
• Try to answer every question.
• Check your answers if you have time at the end.
Grade 9 Edexcel Computer Science - Monthly Test - January 2023
Prepared for Lyceum International School by Lyceum Assessments
2
Answer the question with a cross in the box you think is correct . If you change your mind
about an answer, put a line through the box and then mark your new answer with a cross .
1. (i) A baby monitor uses a microphone to record sound.
Identify the hardware component that holds a program that is currently being executed.
A ALU
B RAM
C Hard drive
D Control unit
(1 mark)
(ii) A company is developing a computer for use in schools. All computers have a CPU,
memory and storage. Identify the type of physical storage that uses electronics circuits.
A Solid state
B The cloud
C Magnetic
D Optical
(1 mark)
(iii) Identify the part of the CPU that sends signals to the other components.
A Arithmetic logic unit
B Control unit
C Register
D Bus
(1 mark)
[Total for question 1 = 3 marks]
2. (i) John von Neumann proposed the concept of a stored program.
State the two items he proposed to store in main memory.
1. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(2 marks)
(ii) Describe the function of the component labelled A.
Central Main
Processing A memory
unit
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(2 marks)
Grade 9 Edexcel Computer Science - Monthly Test - January 2023
Prepared for Lyceum International School by Lyceum Assessments
3
(iii) Describe the role of the control unit, the data bus and the address bus when fetching an
instruction from memory.
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(4 marks)
(iv) What is bus width?
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(2 marks)
(v) What are the advantages of multicore processors over single-core processors?
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(2 marks)
(vi) What type of memory is a USB flash drive and how does it work?
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(2 marks)
[Total for question 2 = 14 marks]
3. (i) A computer stores images online.
The computer runs seven applications, at the same time.
The sum of their memory usage exceeds that of physical memory.
However, all seven applications run.
Describe how the operating system uses virtual memory to manage the situation.
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Grade 9 Edexcel Computer Science - Monthly Test - January 2023
Prepared for Lyceum International School by Lyceum Assessments
4
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(4 marks)
(ii) A hotel chain is considering replacing local backup methods with 'cloud' storage.
Explain the advantages and disadvantages of using 'cloud' storage for backup.
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(6 marks)
[Total for question 3 = 10 marks]
4. A car has many embedded systems.
One example of an embedded system in a car is windscreen wipers that automatically come on
when it rains.
Explain how an embedded system could control the headlights of a car.
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[Total for question 4 = 3 marks]
Grade 9 Edexcel Computer Science - Monthly Test - January 2023
Prepared for Lyceum International School by Lyceum Assessments
5
5. (i) What is clock speed and how is it measured?
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(2 marks)
(ii) Explain the process of reading data from a magnetic Hard Disk Drive?
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(3 marks)
(iii) What are the factors affected to the overall performance of the CPU?
1. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(3 marks)
(iv) Explain the purpose of Cache.
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(2 marks)
(v) Explain following registers:
(a) Accumulator
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(1 mark)
(b) Program counter
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(1 mark)
[Total for question 5 = 12 marks]
6. (i) What kind of computer memory is both static and non-volatile?
Explain this statement.
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(2 marks)
Grade 9 Edexcel Computer Science - Monthly Test - January 2023
Prepared for Lyceum International School by Lyceum Assessments
6
(ii) Describe the benefits and drawbacks of a using traditional magnetic hard disk drive in a
laptop computer compared to a solid-state hard drive.
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(2 marks)
[Total for question 6 = 4 marks]
7. (a) Define the following terms
(i) Magnetic Storage
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(2 marks)
(ii) Optical Storage
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(2 marks)
(iii) Solid state Storage
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(2 marks)
(b) What is meant by the following terms.
“Internet of Things”
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(2 marks)
Grade 9 Edexcel Computer Science - Monthly Test - January 2023
Prepared for Lyceum International School by Lyceum Assessments
7
“Virtualization”
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(2 marks)
[Total for question 7 = 10 marks]
8. Write a program to check the length of a student’s National Identity card number. If the value
entered is less than 10 characters, the program should output.
“The student National Identity card number you have entered not long enough”
Otherwise it should output, “Length of NIC OK”
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[Total for question 8 = 4 marks]
[Total for the paper = 60 marks]
END
Ref:CG
Grade 9 Edexcel Computer Science - Monthly Test - January 2023
Prepared for Lyceum International School by Lyceum Assessments
