Cambridge A Level Information Technology (ICT): Hardware and Software — Practice Questions

These are original practice questions written in the style of Cambridge AS & A Level Information Technology (9626) assessment objectives. They are not taken from any past paper and are not endorsed by Cambridge International.

Use these questions alongside the Topic 2 – Hardware and Software study guide and revision notes.

Section A

1. Define reliability, availability and serviceability (RAS) as three separate concepts. [3]

2. State the key difference between a compiler and an interpreter. [2]

3. State the difference between system software and utility software, giving one example of each. [2]

4. Name the four types of user interface listed in the syllabus. [2]

5. State one advantage and one disadvantage of off-the-shelf software. [2]

Section B

6. A national weather service needs a computer system capable of running highly complex atmospheric simulations as quickly as possible.

(a) State whether a mainframe or a supercomputer is more suitable for this task, and justify your answer. [3] (b) Name one metric used to measure this type of system’s performance. [1]

7. A bank operates a transaction-processing system that must remain available 24 hours a day, with almost no tolerance for data loss, even during scheduled maintenance.

(a) Explain why a mainframe, rather than a supercomputer, is the appropriate choice for this scenario. [3] (b) Explain how fault tolerance differs from reliability in this context. [2]

8. A software development team is writing a new program. During early development, they run their code through an interpreter, but plan to use a compiler once the program is finished.

(a) Explain why an interpreter is useful during early development. [2] (b) Explain why a compiler is more suitable once development is complete. [2]

9. A small accounting firm is deciding between buying off-the-shelf accounting software and commissioning custom-written software.

(a) Give one factor that would favour off-the-shelf software for this firm. [1] (b) Give one factor that would favour custom-written software for this firm. [1] (c) Explain why a strong answer to this scenario weighs both options against the firm’s specific situation, rather than asserting one is simply “better.” [2]

10. A museum installs a public information kiosk intended to be usable by visitors of all ages with no prior training, while a separate room houses servers managed by a systems administrator who values speed and precise control.

(a) State which interface type suits the public kiosk, and justify your answer. [2] (b) State which interface type suits the systems administrator, and justify your answer. [2]

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Answers

1. Reliability is how rarely a system fails [1]; availability is how much of the time the system is usable, accounting for planned maintenance as well as failures [1]; serviceability is how quickly and easily the system can be repaired when something goes wrong [1].

2. A compiler translates and stores an entire program before execution; an interpreter translates and executes the program line by line [2].

3. System software manages or translates for the computer itself (for example, an operating system or device driver) [1]; utility software performs a specific maintenance task for the user (for example, anti-virus software or a back-up utility) [1].

4. Command line, graphical, dialogue, and gesture-based interfaces [2, allow 1 mark for any two correct].

5. Advantage: lower cost and available immediately, having already been tested by a large user base [1]. Disadvantage: may include unneeded features and cannot be tailored exactly to the user’s workflow [1].

6. (a) A supercomputer is more suitable [1], because it is built for raw processing speed on computation-heavy problems such as weather forecasting and climate research, rather than for high-volume transaction throughput, which is what a mainframe is optimised for [2]. (b) FLOPS (floating-point operations per second) or MIPS (millions of instructions per second) [1].

7. (a) Transaction processing is a typical use of a mainframe, which is designed for a very high volume of input, output and throughput — huge numbers of small transactions processed continuously [1]. The bank’s need for 24-hour availability and no data loss calls for high reliability, availability and serviceability (RAS) and fault tolerance, which a mainframe provides — for example, components can be serviced or replaced while the system keeps running [1]. A supercomputer is designed instead for raw processing speed on very complex calculations such as weather forecasting, so its strengths do not match this workload; RAS and fault tolerance appear in the syllabus’s shared list of characteristics for both classes, so it is the type of workload, not RAS on its own, that decides the choice [1]. (b) Fault tolerance is the ability of the system to keep running, often in a degraded state, when a component fails, whereas reliability more generally describes how rarely the system fails in the first place — fault tolerance is about coping with a failure that has already happened, not preventing failures [2].

8. (a) An interpreter translates and executes code line by line, which allows errors to be identified and fixed quickly during development without needing to wait for the entire program to be translated first [2]. (b) A compiler translates and stores the whole program in advance, producing an executable file that runs faster and does not need the source code or a translator present at run time, which is preferable once the program is finished and ready for regular use [2].

9. (a) For example, lower cost or immediate availability without a lengthy development period [1]. (b) For example, the ability to match the firm’s exact requirements and adapt the software as its needs change over time [1]. (c) Because the right choice depends on the firm’s specific budget, timescale, and how unusual or standard its accounting workflow is; a generic assertion that one option is “better” without relating it to these factors does not demonstrate the evaluative skill the question is testing [2].

10. (a) A graphical user interface, because it requires no prior knowledge of commands and gives immediate visual feedback, making it usable by visitors of all ages and technical abilities without training [2]. (b) A command line interface, because it allows precise, scriptable control and faster operation for a technically skilled user managing many servers, where speed and precision outweigh ease-of-learning concerns [2].

A note on exam technique for this topic

Nearly every sub-topic in Topic 2 is examined through “advantages and disadvantages” or a “justify your choice” scenario, so the highest-value revision habit is holding, for every named category, at least one alternative it could be confused with and one concrete scenario where choosing between the two genuinely matters. A generic answer that a system is simply “more advanced” or “better” is weak; a good answer ties the choice explicitly to the scenario’s specific details — budget, timescale, required reliability, or the technical skill of the intended user — the same way questions 6 to 10 above are structured.