gce model questions vol1 2020 computer_studies | Essay

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Question 1 View Details
Computers have evolved dramatically from early mechanical devices to the sophisticated digital systems used today. Answer the following questions.
Question Parts
(a)
Outline five major milestones in the development of computers from the 19th century to the present day, giving the year (or decade) and a brief description of each.
(b)
Explain why the invention of the microprocessor is considered a turning point in computer history.
(c)
Assess the impact of modern computers on education in Nigeria, citing at least two positive and one negative effect.
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Question 2 View Details
A small business intends to assemble a desktop computer for graphic‑design work. The proposed components are listed below: - CPU: Intel Core i7‑9700K, TDP 95 W - GPU: NVIDIA RTX 2070, typical power 175 W - Motherboard (ATX): 40 W - RAM: 16 GB DDR4 (2 × 8 GB modules), 5 W - SSD (512 GB): 4 W - HDD (1 TB): 6 W - Cooling fans: three 120 mm fans, each 2 W The chosen power‑supply unit (PSU) is rated at 550 W. Answer the following questions.
Question Parts
(a)
Calculate the total maximum power consumption of the proposed system by adding the power requirements of all components.
(b)
Determine whether the 550 W PSU provides an adequate safety margin. Assume a minimum 20 % margin above the calculated maximum load is required.
(c)
Discuss the cooling requirements for this system. Use the total power consumption as an estimate of heat generated and comment on whether the three existing fans are sufficient, assuming each fan can move 70 CFM of air.
(d)
The business is considering upgrading the GPU to an NVIDIA RTX 3070, which has a typical power draw of 215 W. Re‑calculate the total power consumption with this upgrade and comment on whether the existing 550 W PSU would still be suitable, keeping the 20 % safety margin in mind.
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Question 3 View Details
A secondary school in Nigeria is considering replacing its current proprietary operating system with an open‑source alternative for all its computer labs.
Question Parts
(a)
Identify three advantages and three disadvantages of adopting an open‑source operating system in a school environment.
(b)
Outline a step‑by‑step migration plan from the current proprietary system to the chosen open‑source system. Your plan should cover preparation, installation, data transfer, and post‑migration support.
(c)
Identify two potential risks associated with the migration and suggest one mitigation strategy for each.
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Question 4 View Details
A school ICT department needs to store and transmit 5‑minute 1080p video recordings of classroom lessons efficiently.
Question Parts
(a)
Explain the difference between lossless and lossy data compression and give one typical example of each used for video files.
(b)
Calculate the approximate size of the uncompressed 5‑minute 1080p video. Assume a frame size of 1920 × 1080 pixels, 24‑bit colour depth, and a frame rate of 30 fps. Express your answer in gigabytes (GB) to two decimal places.
(c)
If a lossy codec reduces the file size by 80 % while keeping acceptable visual quality, determine the resulting file size in gigabytes and discuss one major trade‑off involved in using such compression.
(d)
Recommend a suitable compression approach for archiving the school’s lecture videos and justify your choice in terms of storage efficiency, playback compatibility and educational value.
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Question 5 View Details
A secondary school is planning to introduce a computer‑based library management system to replace its current manual registers.
Question Parts
(a)
Identify and briefly explain the three fundamental components of a computer system, giving one specific example of each component as it would be used in the library system.
(b)
The school wishes to keep records of books, members and loan transactions.
() Propose at least five fields for the Book entity, three fields for the Member entity and four fields for the Loan entity. State a primary key for each entity and justify why it uniquely identifies a record.
() Using the fields you have identified, normalise the data to 3NF. Show each resulting table, its fields, primary key and any foreign keys that link the tables.
(c)
The school is considering whether to host the library system on a local server in the computer laboratory or to use a cloud‑based service. Discuss two advantages and two disadvantages of moving the system to the cloud, supporting each point with a brief explanation relevant to the school environment.
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Question 6 View Details
A medium‑sized private firm has recently experienced several security incidents and wishes to improve its overall information security posture.
Question Parts
(a)
Define the three components of the CIA triad and give a real‑world example of a breach that affects each component.
(b)
The firm intends to introduce a new password policy and to upgrade its password storage mechanism.
() State a minimum number of characters, the required mix of uppercase, lowercase, digits and symbols, and how often passwords must be changed. Justify each requirement with reference to common attack techniques.
() Describe the process of storing passwords using a salted hash and compare it with storing an unsalted hash, highlighting the security benefit.
(c)
During a routine audit, you discover a critical vulnerability in the client’s web application that could expose customer data. Discuss the ethical responsibilities you have as an IT professional in handling this discovery.
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Question 7 View Details
A small secondary school is planning to upgrade its computer network to support both administrative tasks and interactive learning in classrooms.
Question Parts
(a)
Identify three common LAN topologies and discuss one advantage and one disadvantage of each in the context of the school’s requirements.
(b)
The school intends to connect 30 computers in the computer lab, 20 computers in the library, and 10 computers in the staff room, all to a central server. Propose a suitable overall network topology (including the inter‑connection of the three locations) and justify why it is appropriate, considering factors such as scalability, fault tolerance and cable cost.
(c)
The network will use IPv4 addressing. The school has been allocated the address block 192.168.64.0/22. Allocate sub‑networks for the three locations (lab, library, staff room) ensuring each location has enough host addresses and leaves room for future expansion. Show the subnet address, subnet mask, range of usable host addresses and broadcast address for each sub‑network.
(d)
Explain two security measures that should be implemented at the network perimeter and two at the host level to protect the school’s network from common threats.
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Question 8 View Details
A teacher wants to develop a simple Python program to manage student scores for a class of 25 students. The program must read each student's name and three test scores, compute the average, assign a grade (A for ≥85, B for 70‑84, C for 55‑69, D for 40‑54, F for <40), and finally display a summary table.
Question Parts
(a)
Write a Python function named `calculate_average` that takes a list of three numeric scores and returns the average rounded to one decimal place. Include an appropriate docstring.
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Question 9 View Details
A small retail business wants to computerise its inventory and sales records. The information collected is as follows: - Each product has a unique ProductID, a name, a unit price and a current stock quantity. - Each customer has a unique CustomerID, a name, an address and a phone number. - Sales are recorded with a unique SaleID, the date of sale, the CustomerID of the purchaser and one or more line items. Each line item records the ProductID sold, the quantity sold and the selling price per unit (which may differ from the standard unit price due to discounts). - The business wishes to keep a history of stock levels before and after each sale. Using this description, answer the following questions.
Question Parts
(a)
Identify the main entities and their attributes. For each entity, specify a suitable primary key.
(b)
Convert the identified entities into a relational schema. Show the tables with their fields, primary keys and foreign keys, and explain how you would normalise the design to at least Third Normal Form (3NF).
(c)
Write the SQL statements required to create each of the tables defined in part (b). Include appropriate data types, primary‑key constraints and foreign‑key constraints.
(d)
Write an SQL query that returns, for the most recent calendar month, each product’s name together with the total quantity sold and the total revenue (quantity × selling price). Order the result by total revenue in descending order.
(e)
Discuss two advantages of using a relational DBMS rather than a traditional file‑processing system for this retail business.
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Question 10 View Details
A university department uses a spreadsheet to manage student grades for a course and then generates a formatted report for each student using a word‑processing document. The spreadsheet contains the following columns for each student: StudentID, Name, Assignment1, Assignment2, Midterm, Final, and a cell for the FinalGrade which is a weighted average (Assignment1 20%, Assignment2 20%, Midterm 25%, Final 35%).
Question Parts
(a)
Write the formula that should be entered in the FinalGrade cell to compute the weighted average, assuming the first data row starts at row 2.
(b)
Explain the steps required to apply data validation so that marks entered in the Assignment and exam columns are restricted to the range 0–100, and describe how to set conditional formatting that highlights any FinalGrade below 50 in red.
(c)
Using the data in the spreadsheet, outline the procedure to create a bar chart that shows the distribution of FinalGrade scores grouped into the intervals 0‑49, 50‑69, 70‑84, and 85‑100. Briefly interpret what a chart that is heavily weighted toward the 0‑49 interval would suggest about the cohort.
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