Input, Output & Storage (OCR A Level Computer Science): Exam Questions

OCR Insurance uses a computer system to calculate the price that customers pay for car insurance.

The computer system contains a CPU, GPU, RAM and ROM.

Explain the difference between RAM and ROM, including how these are used by the computer system.

OCR Insurance uses a computer system to calculate the price that customers pay for car insurance.

OCR Insurance’s computer system uses secondary storage across the company in servers, client machines and for backup purposes.

For each of these, discuss whether magnetic storage or solid state storage would be most suitable, taking into account the advantages and disadvantages of both.

Give one benefit and one drawback of using virtual storage for personal data storage.

Give one advantage and one disadvantage of using a graphics tablet compared to a mouse for graphic design tasks.

The stored program concept uses the Fetch-Decode-Execute cycle to get the next instruction from memory and then execute it.

The performance of a computer system can be improved by adding more RAM.

Explain why adding more RAM will improve the performance of a computer system.

An embedded system is often a small device that is designed to carry out a limited number of specialised tasks. Professional athletes sometimes wear small embedded systems called fitness trackers in their shirts. These can be used to track their speed, position, heart rate and other performance data during an event. The tracker transmits this data to a pitch-side server which collates the data from all the athletes.

State the name of one input device that might be used in this embedded system and state what it would be used for.

An embedded system is often a small device that is designed to carry out a limited number of specialised tasks. Professional athletes sometimes wear small embedded systems called fitness trackers in their shirts. These can be used to track their speed, position, heart rate and other performance data during an event. The tracker transmits this data to a pitch-side server which collates the data from all the athletes.

The fitness tracker manufacturers had to decide which type of secondary storage to use.

Explain two reasons why flash (solid state) storage would be the best type of secondary storage for the fitness tracker system.

An embedded system is often a small device that is designed to carry out a limited number of specialised tasks. Professional athletes sometimes wear small embedded systems called fitness trackers in their shirts. These can be used to track their speed, position, heart rate and other performance data during an event. The tracker transmits this data to a pitch-side server which collates the data from all the athletes.

Apart from storing the BIOS, ROM can also be used in other ways.

Describe how the embedded system can make a different use of ROM and why it is an advantage.