Cambridge International AS & A Level

* 3 0 1 3 8 0 7 6 7 4 *

COMPUTER SCIENCE 9618/22

Paper 2 Fundamental Problem-solving and Programming Skills May/June 2021

2 hours

You must answer on the question paper.

You will need: Insert (enclosed)

INSTRUCTIONS
● Answer all questions
● Use a black or dark blue pen.
● Write your name, centre number and candidate number in the boxes at the top of the page.
● Write your answer to each question in the space provided.
● Do not use an erasable pen or correction fluid.
● Do not write on any bar codes.
● You may use an HB pencil for any diagrams, graphs or rough working.
● Calculators must not be used in this paper.

INFORMATION
● The total mark for this paper is 75.
● The number of marks for each question or part question is shown in brackets [ ].
● No marks will be awarded for using brand names of software packages or hardware.
● The insert contains all the resources referred to in the questions.

This document has 16 pages. Any blank pages are indicated.

DC (MB/FC) 200588/5
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Refer to the insert for the list of pseudocode functions and operators.

1 (a) (i) Complete the following table by giving the appropriate data type in each case.

Variable Example data value Data type

Name "Catherine"
Index 100
Modified FALSE
Holiday 25/12/2020
[4]

(ii) Evaluate each expression in the following table by using the initial data values shown in
part (a)(i).

Expression Evaluates to
Modified OR Index > 100
LENGTH("Student: " & Name)
INT(Index + 2.9)
MID(Name, 1, 3)
[4]

(b) Each pseudocode statement in the following table contains an example of selection,
assignment or iteration.

Put one tick (‘✓’) in the appropriate column for each statement.

Statement Selection Assignment Iteration

Index Index + 1
IF Modified = TRUE THEN
ENDWHILE
[3]

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2 (a) Examine the following state-transition diagram.

Low level detected | Activate pump

Low level detected

X S2
S1

Normal level detected Normal level detected | Deactivate pump

S3

(i) Complete the table with reference to the diagram.

Answer
The number of transitions that result in a different state
The number of transitions with associated outputs
The label that should replace ‘X’
The final or halting state
[4]

(ii) The current state is S1. The following inputs occur.

1. Low level detected

2. Low level detected
3. Low level detected
4. Low level detected

Give the number of outputs and the current state.

Number of outputs .............................................................................................................

Current state .....................................................................................................................

[2]

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(b) A system is being developed to help manage book loans in a library.

Registered users may borrow books from the library for a period of time.

(i) State three items of data that must be stored for each loan.

1 ........................................................................................................................................

2 ........................................................................................................................................

3 ........................................................................................................................................
[2]

(ii) State one item of data that will be required in the library system but does not need to be
stored for each loan.

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(iii) One operation that manipulates the data stored for each loan, would produce a list of all
overdue books.

Identify two other operations.

Operation 1 .......................................................................................................................

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Operation 2 .......................................................................................................................

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[2]

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3 The following diagram represents an Abstract Data Type (ADT).

A B
Dolphin Cat Fish Elk

(a) Identify this type of ADT.

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(b) Give the technical term for the item labelled A in the diagram.

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(c) Give the technical term for the item labelled B in the diagram.

Explain the meaning of the value given to this item.

Term ..........................................................................................................................................

Meaning ....................................................................................................................................

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[2]

(d) Complete the diagram to show the ADT after the data has been sorted in alphabetical order.

Dolphin Cat Fish Elk

[2]

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4 A teacher uses a paper-based system to store marks for a class test. The teacher requires a
program to assign grades based on these results.

The program will output the grades together with the average mark.

Write a detailed description of the algorithm that will be needed.

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5 (a) A student is learning about arrays.

She wants to write a program to:

• declare a 1D array RNum of 100 elements of type INTEGER

• assign each element a random value in the range 1 to 200 inclusive
• count and output how many numbers generated were between 66 and 173 inclusive.

(i) Write pseudocode to represent the algorithm.

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(ii) The student decides to modify the algorithm so that each element of the array will contain
a unique value.

Describe the changes that the student needs to make to the algorithm.

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(b) The following is a pseudocode function.

Line numbers are given for reference only.

01 FUNCTION StringClean(InString : STRING) RETURNS STRING

02
03 DECLARE NextChar : CHAR
04 DECLARE OutString : STRING
05 DECLARE Counter : INTEGER
06
07 OutString ""
08
09 FOR Counter 1 TO LENGTH(InString)
10 NextChar MID(InString, Counter, 1)
11 NextChar LCASE(NextChar)
12 IF NOT((NextChar < 'a') OR (NextChar > 'z')) THEN
13 OutString OutString & NextChar
14 ENDIF
15 NEXT Counter
16
17 RETURN OutString
18
19 ENDFUNCTION

(i) Examine the pseudocode and complete the following table.

Answer

Give a line number containing an example of an initialisation statement.

Give a line number containing the start of a repeating block of code.

Give a line number containing a logic operation.

Give the number of parameters to the function MID().

[4]

(ii) Write a simplified version of the statement in line 12.

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6 A procedure CountVowels() will:

• be called with a string containing alphanumeric characters as its parameter

• count and output the number of occurrences of each vowel (a, e, i, o, u) in the string
• count and output the number of occurrences of the other alphabetic characters (as a single
total).

The string may contain both upper and lower case characters.

Each count value will be stored in a unique element of a global 1D array CharCount of type
INTEGER. The array will contain six elements.

Write pseudocode for the procedure CountVowels().

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7 A procedure, FormatName():

• is called with a string containing words and spaces as its parameter. In this context, a word is
any sequence of characters that does not contain a space character.

• creates a new formatted string from this string with the following requirements:
1. Any leading spaces removed (spaces before the first word).
2. Any trailing spaces removed (spaces after the last word).
3. Any multiple spaces between words converted to a single space.
4. All characters converted to lower case.

The FormatName() procedure has been written in a programming language and is to be tested
using the black-box method.

(a) Give a test string that could be used to show that all four formatting requirements have been
applied correctly.

Use the symbol ‘∇’ to represent a space character.

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(b) The FormatName() procedure should assign a value to the global variable FString.

There is a fault in the program, which means that the assignment does not always take place.

Explain two ways of exposing the fault.

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8 A program is needed to take a string containing a full name and to produce a new string of initials.

Some words in the full name will be ignored. For example, “the”, “and”, “of”, “for” and “to” may all
be ignored.

Each letter of the new string must be upper case.

For example:

Full name Initials

Integrated Development Environment IDE
The American Standard Code for Information Interchange ASCII

The programmer has decided to use the following global variables:

• a ten element 1D array IgnoreList of type STRING to store the ignored words
• a string FNString to store the full name string.

Assume that:

• each alphabetic character in the full name string may be either upper or lower case
• the full name string contains at least one word.

The programmer has started to define program modules as follows:

Module Description
• Called with an INTEGER as its parameter, representing the number of
a word in FNString
GetStart() • Returns the character start position of that word in FNString or
returns -1 if that word does not exist
• For example: GetStart(3) applied to "hot and cold" returns 9
• Called with the position of the first character of a word in FNString
as its parameter
GetWord() • Returns the word from FNString
• For example: if FNString contains the string "hot and cold",
GetWord(9) returns "cold"
• Called with a STRING parameter representing a word
IgnoreWord() • Searches for the word in the IgnoreList array
• Returns TRUE if the word is found, otherwise returns FALSE
• Processes the sequence of words in the full name one word at a time
GetInitials()
• Calls GetStart(), GetWord() and IgnoreWord() to process
each word to form the new string
• Outputs the new string

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(a) Write pseudocode for the module IgnoreWord().

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(b) Write pseudocode for the module GetInitials().

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publisher will be pleased to make amends at the earliest possible opportunity.

To avoid the issue of disclosure of answer-related information to candidates, all copyright acknowledgements are reproduced online in the Cambridge
Assessment International Education Copyright Acknowledgements Booklet. This is produced for each series of examinations and is freely available to download
at www.cambridgeinternational.org after the live examination series.

Cambridge Assessment International Education is part of the Cambridge Assessment Group. Cambridge Assessment is the brand name of the University of
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© UCLES 2021 9618/22/M/J/21