Advance Information for Summer 2022
A Level
Computer Science
H446
We have produced this advance information to help support teachers and students with revision
for the Summer 2022 examinations.
Information
• This notice covers all examined components.
• This notice does not cover non-examined assessment (NEA) components.
• There are no restrictions on who can use this notice.
• You are not permitted to take this notice into the exam.
• This document has 3 pages.
Advice
• It is advised that teaching and learning should still cover the entire subject content in the
specification.
• Students and teachers can discuss this advance information.
• Students can ask their teachers for advice.
If you have any queries about this notice, please call our Customer Support Centre on 01223
553998 or email [email protected].
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Advance Information Summer 2022 2
Guidance
• The following areas of content are suggested as key areas of focus for revision and final
preparation.
• It is important to note that advance information is NOT being provided for every question.
Students are advised that some questions will be on content not listed.
• The aim should still be to cover all specification content in teaching and learning.
• Some questions may be answerable using more than one area of specified content,
including ones not listed.
• The information is presented in specification order and not in question order.
H446/01
Specification
Name of topic Sub part of topic directly assessed in some form
reference
1.1.1 Structure and function (b) The Fetch-Decode-Execute Cycle, including its effect on
of the processor registers
(d) The use of pipelining in a processor to improve efficiency
(e) Von Neumann, Harvard and contemporary processor
architecture
1.1.2 Types of processor (a) The differences between and uses of CISC and RISC
processors
1.2.1 Systems Software (d) Scheduling: round robin, first come first served, multi-
level feedback queues, shortest job first and shortest
remaining time
1.2.2 Applications (d) Translators: Interpreters, compilers and assemblers
Generation
(e) Stages of compilation (lexical analysis, syntax analysis,
code generation and optimisation)
1.2.4 Types of (c) Assembly language (including following and writing
Programming simple programs with the Little Man Computer instruction
Language set). See appendix 5d
1.3.2 Databases (d) SQL – Interpret and modify. See appendix 5d
(f) Transaction processing, ACID (Atomicity, Consistency,
Isolation, Durability), record locking and redundancy
1.3.3 Networks (b) The internet structure:
• The TCP/IP Stack
1.4.1 Data Types (f) Convert positive integers between Binary Hexadecimal
and denary
(g) Representation and normalisation of floating point
numbers in binary
(j) How character sets (ASCII and UNICODE) are used to
represent text
© OCR 2021
Advance Information Summer 2022 3
H446/02
Specification
Name of topic Sub part of topic directly assessed in some form
reference
2.1.1 Thinking abstractly (a) The nature of abstraction
(b) The need for abstraction
2.1.2 Thinking ahead (c) The nature, benefits and drawbacks of caching
(d) The need for reusable program components
2.2.1 Programming (b) Recursion, how it can be used and compares to an
techniques iterative approach
(c) Global and local variables
d) Modularity, functions and procedures, parameter passing
by value and by reference
(e) Use of an IDE to develop/debug a program
(f) Use of object oriented techniques
2.2.2 Computational (f) Learners should apply their knowledge of:
methods • performance modelling
• visualisation to solve problems
2.3.1 Algorithms (e) Algorithms for the main data structures, (stacks,
queues, trees, linked lists, depth-first (post-order) and
breadth-first traversal of trees)
END OF ADVANCE INFORMATION
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