IGCSE ICT: Input and Output Devices — Practice Questions

These are original questions written for Marlbridge, in the style and at the standard of the examination. They are not reproduced past-paper questions — Cambridge International holds copyright in its own papers. Use these alongside the official past papers available through your school or Cambridge directly.

Related: Input and Output Devices revision notes

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Section A

1. Name a device that reads data directly from a printed multiple-choice answer sheet. [1]

2. State two categories a touch screen can belong to, depending on how it is used. [2]

3. Name the output device that converts an electrical signal into physical movement. [1]

4. Give one reason why OCR would be unsuitable for reading a printed bar code. [1]

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Section B

5. A delivery company wants to reduce errors when recording which parcels have left its depot each day.

(a) Recommend a suitable direct data entry device for scanning each parcel’s label. [1] (b) Justify your recommendation by comparing it with typing each parcel’s reference number in by hand. [3]

6. A hospital wants to track patients wearing wristbands as they move between wards, without staff needing to hold a scanner directly against each wristband.

(a) Recommend a suitable device for this task. [1] (b) Explain why a bar code reader would be less suitable for this specific scenario. [3]

7. A small office needs to print occasional colour posters and a much larger volume of everyday black-and-white letters.

(a) Recommend a suitable printer for the colour posters, and one for the everyday letters. [2] (b) Justify each recommendation. [4]

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Section C

8. A warehouse uses a dot matrix printer to produce delivery notes, even though the warehouse also owns a modern laser printer.

Explain why a dot matrix printer might still be the more appropriate choice for this specific task, and give one disadvantage of dot matrix printing that the warehouse is accepting as a trade-off. [4]

9. A school is deciding how students should register their attendance each morning: by typing a student ID at a keyboard, or by tapping an RFID card against a reader.

Compare the two methods, explaining at least two advantages of the RFID method over the keyboard method. [6]

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Worked answers

1. Optical Mark Recognition/Reader (OMR). [1]

2. Input device and output device. [2]

3. Actuator. [1]

4. OCR is designed to recognise printed or handwritten text characters, not the pattern of lines used in a bar code, so it cannot correctly interpret a bar code’s data. [1]

5. (a) Bar code reader (or QR scanner). [1] (b) Scanning the label directly removes the need for a person to read and re-type the reference number, which is both slower and prone to transcription errors (mistyped digits); a bar code reader captures the exact reference in one action, making the process faster and more accurate than manual entry. [3]

6. (a) RFID reader. [1] (b) A bar code reader requires a direct line of sight to the code and needs to be held close to it, which is impractical for a patient who is moving or whose wristband may be concealed under clothing or bedding; an RFID reader can detect the tag at a short distance without needing a clear line of sight, making it far more practical for tracking a moving patient. [3]

7. (a) Colour posters: inkjet printer. Everyday black-and-white letters: laser printer. [2] (b) An inkjet printer produces high-quality colour output at a low upfront cost, which suits occasional colour posters where volume is low; a laser printer is faster and cheaper per page for high-volume printing, which suits the much larger volume of everyday black-and-white letters, even though its upfront cost is higher than an inkjet’s. [4]

8. A dot matrix printer can print through multiple layers of a carbon or carbonless multi-part form in a single pass (for example, producing a customer copy and a warehouse copy of the same delivery note simultaneously), which a laser or inkjet printer cannot do; a dot matrix printer’s impact-based mechanism is also generally more tolerant of a dusty or harsh warehouse environment than a laser printer’s more delicate internal components. The trade-off the warehouse is accepting is that dot matrix printing is noisy and produces low-resolution output compared with laser printing. [4] (Marks for a genuine multi-part-form or environment-based justification, plus a correctly stated disadvantage.)

9. Typing a student ID at a keyboard requires the student to correctly enter a full ID number each morning, which is slower and creates the possibility of mistyped digits recording the wrong student as present (or a valid ID being typed by someone other than its owner). Tapping an RFID card is faster, since it requires only a brief tap rather than typing a full number, and reduces the risk of transcription error entirely, since the ID is read directly from the card rather than re-typed by hand; RFID reading is also less disruptable by queuing delays at busy times, since each tap takes less time than typing a full ID at a keyboard. A fair comparison should also note that RFID depends on students correctly carrying and presenting their own card, which is a different (not necessarily worse) source of error than keyboard mistyping. [6] (Marks for at least two genuine, distinct RFID advantages, correctly justified against the keyboard method rather than just asserted.)

Official syllabus

Cambridge International, Cambridge IGCSE Information and Communication Technology (0417) syllabus for 2026, 2027 and 2028, Subject content, Topic 2 — the same specification cited by the Input and Output Devices study guide and its revision notes.