Program Development Life cycle (Cambridge (CIE) A Level Computer Science): Exam Questions

A program has been developed and released for general use. After a few months of use an error is detected where under certain circumstances it outputs an unexpected value.

The error in the program needs to be corrected.

Identify the stage of the program development life cycle that this correction is made in.

A software developer follows a program development life cycle. The life cycle divides the development process into various stages.

The following table lists some development activities.

Complete the table by writing the name of the life cycle stage for each activity.

A coffee shop owner wants to introduce a computerised loyalty card system.

A programmer discusses the details of the system with the shop owner.

Identify the stage of the program development life cycle that this discussion is part of and give a document that will be produced during this stage.

A team of developers is building a new online booking program for a chain of hotels.

The team decides to follow a program development life cycle, which divides the work into separate stages.

State one benefit to the team of dividing the work into stages.

A company is developing a new module for its online ticket booking program. The module will send a reminder message to a customer two days before an event takes place.

The analysis of the new module is complete and the project has moved on to the design stage. During this stage the algorithms for the module will be designed.

State three other items that will be produced or decided during the design stage.

A software company is developing a program for a transport company. The development follows a program development life cycle with analysis, design, coding, testing and maintenance stages.

The development team is behind schedule. To save time, the team spends only a few hours on the analysis stage before moving on to the design.

Explain two problems that this decision may cause at later stages of the life cycle.

A software company develops programs using the waterfall model of the program development life cycle.

A new trainee is shown a diagram of this model. Each stage is drawn in its own box, from Analysis in the top box to Maintenance in the bottom box. Every pair of neighbouring stages is joined by two arrows, one pointing down and one pointing up.

The trainee asks what each type of arrow represents.

Explain what a downward arrow represents and what an upward arrow represents in this diagram.

A development team is writing a program for a supermarket company to manage its stock. The team is using the waterfall model of the program development life cycle.

The analysis and design stages are complete and the team is part-way through the coding stage.

The supermarket company now tells the team that the program must also store the country that each product comes from.

Describe what the development team must do to add this new requirement to the program.

A software company is writing two programs for a transport authority.

Program A controls the doors on a driverless train. The safety rules that the program must follow are fixed by law and are published in full. Before the program can be used, an inspector must check the finished program against a written design document.

Program B is a smartphone app that shows travellers how busy each train is. The transport authority does not yet know which features travellers will want, and it wants a first version of the app available within two months.

The company will use the waterfall life cycle for one of these two programs and a different life cycle for the other.

Identify the program that should be developed using the waterfall life cycle and justify your answer by referring to both programs.

A small team is writing a program that a language school will use to book lessons.

The school is not sure exactly what it wants the program to do. It wants to use a working version of the program from the end of the first month, and it expects to ask for changes once its staff have used that version.

The team has decided not to use the waterfall life cycle.

Give the name of a suitable program development life cycle model for this project and give one reason for your choice.

Two companies are each writing a program that lets customers order food from local restaurants. The two programs will do the same job.

Company A uses the waterfall life cycle. Company B uses an iterative life cycle. Both companies start work on the same day.

Six months later, customers are already using Company B's program. Company A has not yet released anything.

Explain why the iterative life cycle allowed Company B to release a usable program first.

A program has been written for a chain of hotels using an iterative life cycle. At the end of the project the hotel chain reports two problems.

Problem 1: the project cost much more, and finished much later, than the figures the development company gave at the start.

Problem 2: a developer who joined the team near the end of the project could find very little written information about how the program works.

Explain how the use of an iterative life cycle could have caused each of these two problems.

A software company has been asked to write a program that a city bus service will use to sell tickets. The company will develop the program using the Rapid Application Development (RAD) life cycle.

State two principles of this life cycle.

A charity needs a program that will register volunteers for a sports event. The event takes place in four months' time and the date cannot be changed. The charity has a general idea of what it needs but has not written down a full list of requirements.

A developer suggests using the Rapid Application Development (RAD) life cycle rather than the waterfall life cycle.

Give two benefits and one drawback of using the RAD life cycle instead of the waterfall life cycle for this program.

A company is writing a program to sell tickets for a music festival. The festival dates are fixed and cannot be moved, so the program must be working on the day tickets go on sale.

The company will use the Rapid Application Development (RAD) life cycle.

The festival organisers have told the company that they are very busy and will not be able to meet the development team often.

Explain how two principles of the RAD life cycle help the company to meet the fixed date, and explain one problem that will be caused by the organisers being unavailable.