Types of Peripheral Devices (Edexcel IGCSE ICT): Exam Questions

Gail’s laptop uses memory management.

Which one of these is the largest amount of data?

Which one of these is the reason why screen resolution is important?

Visitors usually bring a digital device to events at the venue.

The venue uses a barcode scanner that connects to the booking system.

Which one of these would represent the amount of data required to be sent by the barcode scanner to the booking system?

Camille uses digital devices for work.

A distance sensor is used as an input for an embedded system in a car.

Which one of these is another example of an input for a device?

Camille’s laptop uses secondary storage.

Which one of these is a feature of a hard disk that allows data to be read?

Which one of these is the largest amount of data?

Camille’s laptop uses secondary storage.

State two characteristics of hard disk drives that make them more suitable for use with servers than magnetic tape.

Camille’s child, Sarah, uses websites and video sharing sites for her school work.

Sarah participates in an online meeting as part of a lesson.

State two peripheral output devices Sarah requires to participate in the online meeting.

Camille designs controllers for a games console.

Controllers are input devices.

State two other peripheral input devices for a games console.

Joe streams a radio show online.

State one type of input device that would be used to capture Joe’s voice.

Joe’s computer has 8GiB of RAM.

Each recording uses 300MiB of RAM.

(i)

Construct an expression to show how many recordings can be stored in RAM at once.

[2]

(iii)

State two benefits of using storage, rather than RAM, to save the radio shows.

Joe uses a laptop to record audio.

Which one of these would represent the minimum amount of data required to store a one‑hour, uncompressed audio recording?

Joe travels to play music at venues around the country and takes a music collection.

Discuss the benefits and drawbacks of the different storage media types available to Joe.

You should consider these points in your response:

• different types of storage device

• portability

• capacity

• compatibility

• durability.

A school uses paper answer sheets for a multiple-choice test. Students answer by shading small boxes on the sheet with a pencil.

Which one of these input devices would read the answer sheets?

A small shop enters the product code of every item it sells at the checkout.

Explain one reason why the shop uses a bar code scanner rather than a keyboard to enter the product codes.

Kiran is an illustrator who draws detailed pictures for children's books on a computer. At the moment, Kiran draws using a mouse.

Explain two reasons why a graphics tablet would be more suitable than a mouse for Kiran's work.

A computer controls the conditions inside a greenhouse. When the temperature is too high, the computer opens the windows automatically.

State one output device that could be used to open the windows.

An office prints several hundred pages of text documents every day.

Explain one reason why a laser printer is more suitable than an inkjet printer for this office.

A museum shows a short film to groups of up to 40 visitors. The film is shown in whichever room is free that day.

Explain two reasons why a data projector is more suitable than a monitor for showing the film.

Give two reasons why a hard disk drive (HDD) might be chosen instead of a solid state drive (SSD).

Sami keeps all their school work on the internal hard disk drive of a laptop. Sami decides to keep a backup copy on an external hard disk drive.

Explain one benefit of keeping the backup on an external drive rather than on the laptop's internal drive.

Amani is a journalist. Amani writes and sends news reports on a laptop while travelling by train and bus. The laptop often runs on its battery for many hours.

Explain two reasons why a solid state drive (SSD) is more suitable than a hard disk drive (HDD) for Amani's laptop.

Which one of these is equal to one mebibyte (MiB)?

Describe the difference between a bit and a byte.

A games console has a solid state drive (SSD) with a capacity of 512 GiB.

Construct an expression for the total number of bits that 512 GiB can hold.

Which one of these is a storage medium rather than a storage device?

Noa backs up a folder of photographs to an optical disc every week. Noa uses a new DVD-R disc each time.

Explain one reason why a DVD-RW disc would be a better choice for these weekly backups.

A hospital makes a full backup of all of its patient records every night. Each backup is kept for several years.

Explain two reasons why magnetic tape is a suitable storage medium for these backups.