Answers

Section 3: Programming Languages

Check your progress 1
1. List TWO advantages and ONE disadvantage of high-level languages over
machine-level languages.
A. Advantages: Easy to read, write and understand; easy to correct mistakes;
portable as they are machine independent
Disadvantages: slower in execution as translation required
2. Match the following program instructions with their corresponding language:
Instruction
Programming Language
a. SORT STOCK BY ITEMNAME
i. High-level
b. SUB A, B
ii. Machine-level
c. PRINT SUM
iii. 4GL
d. 101001101
iv. 5GL
e. GET ME THE LARGEST NUMBER v. Assembly-level
A. a. iii
b. v
c. i
d. ii
e. iv
3. A machine-level language program runs on one type of computer, but not on
another type of computer. Why?
A. Because they are machine-dependent.

4. Define the following terms:

a. program
b. assembler
c. 4GL
A. a. A set of instructions written in a programming language that directs the
computer to solve a problem or task.
b. A translator that converts assembly level language into machine level
language.
c. A programming language where the programmer just has to specify what
is to be attained instead of giving steps for how to attain it.
5. High-level languages also need translators to convert to machine level. Give
TWO types of translators used by them.
A. Compilers and interpreters.
Check your progress 2
1. List the five stages involved in program implementation.
A. Creating source code, compiling, linking, executing and maintaining.
2. State the difference between source code and object code.
A. A program in high-level or assembly-level language is called a source code
and a program in machine-level language is called object code.
3. Define the terms:
a. Testing
b. Dry run
c. Test data
A. a. Looking for errors in the program and making sure that it is working
properly.
b. Manually going through program statements one by one, looking for
errors.
c. The input values used to see if the program produces required results.
4. List three tasks involved in debugging a program.
A. Looking for errors, locating errors, correcting errors.
5. What are the three different types of program errors?
A. Syntax error, logic error and run time error.

6. Distinguish between syntax errors and logic errors.

A. Syntax errors are errors reported by translators when the rules of the
programming language are not followed correctly; logic errors occur when the
required results of a program cannot be produced due to the incorrect logic of
the programmer.
Check your progress 3
1. You are writing a program to find the average of three integers. The average is
stored in a variable named avg. What is the data type for the variable avg? Give
a reason for your answer.
A. The data type of variable avg would be real as it can possibly have decimal
places.
2. Write a statement to declare the variable avg.
A. var avg:real
3. You need to initialise the variable avg to zero at the beginning of the program.
Write the Pascal statement to do this.
A. avg :=0
4. Which of the following are valid variable names?:
a. 4you
b. _all
c. date of birth
A. a. No
b. Yes
c. No

5. Consider the following program and identify all the errors.

program calc;
const
no := 2
a, b, c: integer;
begin
c: = 0
a := 5;
b := 10.75:
c : = no + b +c;
end.
A. In program line 4, the keyword var is missing in front of variable declaration.
In program line 5, the value of b has decimal places so the variable
declaration at line 4, must be real instead of integer.
Check your progress 4
1. What is displayed by the following statements if the user enters 10?
Write(Enter your years of service:)
Read(yrs);
A. Enter your years of service:
2. What is printed by the following two statements?
Write(Hello);
Writeln(Everyone);
A. HelloEveryone
3. What is the value of (36 div 5) * (35 mod 4)?
A. 7*3 =21

4. Write an algorithm and a program to compute the VAT payable on an item. The
program should ask the user to enter the price of an item and compute the VAT
payable on the item using a fixed rate of 16% of the price.
A. program discount;
const rate := .16
var vat, price: real;
begin
writeln(Enter the price) ;
readln(price);
vat := price* rate;
write(vat);
end.
Check your progress 5
1. A store uses the following policy to award discount. If the customer purchases
products costing more than $500 she is given a discount of 10%, otherwise she
is given a discount of 2%. Write a program to compute the discount a customer
will receive based on the purchase she makes.
A. program discount;
const rate1 := .10
const rate2 := .02
var discount, price: real;
begin
writeln(Enter the price) ;
readln(price);
if price>500 then
discount := price* rate1;
else
discount:= price *rate2;
write(vat);
end.

2. Write a program to print the message Your tuition is wavered if the student
scores over 85 marks in the entrance examination.
program tuition;
var score: integer;
begin
writeln(Enter score);
readln(score);
if score>85 then
writeln(Your tuition is wavered);
end.
3. Consider the following while loop:
Begin
a := 0;
while a < 5 DO
begin
a := a + 3;
Writeln(a, 'is less than 5');
end;
end.
How many times would the program go through the loop?
A. The program will go through the loop two times.
4. Consider the following segment of code:
Begin
for a := 1 to 5 do
Writeln('Help');
Writeln('me);
end.
Is the above statement correct? Give reason for your answer.
A. No. The two Writeln statements should be between a begin and end
statement. The correct code is:
begin
For a:= 1 to 5 do
begin
Writeln(Help);
Writeln(me);
end;
end.
5. Consider the following segment of code:

Begin
a := 0;
repeat
a := a + 1;
Writeln(The number is , a);
until a > 5;
<End computer font>
In the third repetition of the repeat-until segment, what is printed out?
A. It will print 3.
Check your progress 6
1. Construct a trace table for the following segment of code:
Begin
a :=1;
b := 2;
c := 1;
while a < 20 DO
begin
b := a * 2;
c := b + 1;
a : = c + 2;
end;
end.
A.
A
B
C
1
2
1
2
3
5
10
11
13
20
21
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2. Consider the following lines of code:

a := 1;
b := a 1;
c := a div b;
What type of error would be generated when the three statements above are
executed? Give a reason for your answer.
A. Run-time error due to division by zero.
3. A program has been tested and all errors are corrected. What type of errors
could still occur when the program is executed?
A. Logical errors
Check your progress 7
1. List three advantages of proper documentation in a program.
A. Clear documentation makes it easier for users to comprehend and use the
program; if there is a problem with a section of the program, users can refer
to the documentation to solve it; users and programmers can easily make a
modification to the program.
2. State the difference between internal and external documentation
A. Internal documentation is documentation that appears inside a program in the
form of comments that make the reading and understanding of the program
easier. External documentation is documentation that is developed separately
and supplied with the program, which acts as a guide for the program users.
3. For each of the following, classify them as internal documentation or external
documentation.
a. Meaningful variable names
b. Frequently Asked Questions
c. Tutorial
d. Indentation
e. Tabs
A. a. Internal
b. External
c. External
d. Internal
e. Internal

4. What is technical documentation?

A. Technical documentation contains the technical aspect of program such as its
version, the operating system that it can work with, the amount of memory
and hard disk space required, and the installation procedure.
5. Most programs come with user documentation. What are the typical contents of
user documentation?
A. Instructions like how to: start or stop the program, move around different parts
of the program and solve simple program errors.
End-of-section questions
Multiple-choice
1. Which one of the following is a low-level language:
A HLL
B ALL
C 4GL
D 5GL
A. B
2. Which one of the following is not a feature of third generation languages?
A they need to get translated
B they are faster than MLLs
C they are easy to use than MLLs
D they use compilers and interpreters
A. B
3. The translator used by second generation languages is:
A compiler
B linker
C assembler
D interpreter
A. C

4. The following are steps associated with implementing the program

I. compiling
II. create source code
III. linking
IV. maintain program
V. executing
The correct order is:
A I, II, III, IV, V
B II, I, III, V, IV
C II, I, V, III, IV
D II, V, I, III, IV
A. B
5. The error that occurs when the program has to stop before its completion due to
a bad condition such as division by 0 is:
A debug error
B syntax error
C logic error
D run-time error
A. D
6. Which of the following is not a data type found in Pascal?
A integers
B real
C text
D string
A. C
7. An example of a conditional branching statement in Pascal is:
A goto
B if then
C for
D while
A. B

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8. The following are loop statements used in Pascal except:

A while
B if-then
C for
D repeat
A. B
9. The major advantage of machine-level languages over other programming
languages is:
A they are slower in execution
B they are slower in correcting mistakes
C they are faster in execution
D they are faster in correcting mistakes
A. C
10.Programming languages that use mnemonics are called:
A machine-level languages
B high-level languages
C assembly-level languages
D fourth generation languages
A. C
Structured questions
1. a. State the difference between first generation and second generation
languages.
b. List one advantage and two disadvantages of first generation languages
compared to second generation languages.
c. List three examples of third generation languages.
A. a. First generation languages or machine-level languages use binary code;
second generation or assembly-level languages use mnemonics.
b. Advantage: They are faster in execution than second generation
Disadvantages: hard to read, write and understand; hard to correct
mistakes; machine dependent
c. Pascal, BASIC, C, FORTRAN

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2. a. List the sequence of steps associated with implementing a program.

b. State the difference between:
i. testing and debugging
ii. syntax error and logic error
iii. logic error and run-time error
iv. testing and dry running
c. Define the term test data.
A. a. Creating source code, compiling, linking, executing, maintaining.
b. i. Testing is making sure that a program does not have any errors and is
working properly; debugging is looking for errors, locating and
correcting them.
ii. Syntax errors are errors reported by translators when the rules of the
programming language are not followed correctly; logic errors occur
when the required results of a program are not produced due to the
bad reasoning of the programmer.
iii. Logic errors occur when the required results of a program are not
produced due to the bad reasoning of the programmer; run-time errors
occur when the program has to stop before its completion due to a
wrong condition.
iv. Testing is making sure that a program does not have any errors and is
working properly using the programming language; dry running or desk
checking is manually going through the program one statement at
time,
looking for errors before it is entered into the computer system.
c. Test data are values used in a program to determine if it produces the
required results.
3. a.
b.
c.
A.

State one conditional branching statement in Pascal.

State one example of a bounded iteration statement in Pascal.
State one example of an unbounded iteration statement in Pascal.
a. if-then-else
b. for
c. while

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4. A well documented program makes it easy for the user to use.

a. List two types of program documentation.
b. State the purpose of each documentation you identified in your answer to
Q4a
A. a. Internal and external.
b. Internal documentation is used to make the reading and understanding of
the program easier. External documentation is documentation that acts as
a guide for the program users.
5. Using the algorithm you created for Q15 in Section 2s End-of-section Questions,
write a program in Pascal that prompts the user to enter a value and display its
square and cube values.
A. program square_cube;
var num, square, cube: integer;
begin
writeln(Enter number) ;
readln(num);
square := num* num;
cube := num*num*num;
writeln(the square is, square);
writeln(the cube is, cube);
end.
6. Using the flowchart you created for Q16 in Section 2s End-of-section Questions,
write a program in Pascal that will prompt the user to enter two numbers and
display their product.
A. program product;
var num1, num2,product: integer;
begin
writeln(Enter first number) ;
readln(num1);
writeln(Enter second number);
readln(num2);
product := num* num;
writeln(the product is, product);
end.

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7. Using the flowchart you created for Q18 in Section 2s End-of-section Questions,
write a program in Pascal that will accept 25 integers and displays the number of
positive and negative numbers.
A. program positive_negative;
var num, square, cube: integer;
begin
for i := 1 to 25 do
begin
readln(num);
if num>0 then
poscount=poscount+1;
else
negcount=negcount+1;
end;
writeln(number of positive numbers is, poscount);
writeln(number of negative numbers is, negcount);
end.

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8. a. Write a pseudocode that will accept a set of marks of students and display the
highest marks. The pseudocode stops when the user input -1 for marks.
b. Using the pseudocode you created in your answer Q8a as a guide, implement
the program in Pascal.
A. a. Step 1: start
Step 2: largest 0
Step 3: read num
Step 4: while num <> -1
If num>largest then
largest num
endif
read num
endwhile
Step 5: write largest
Step 6: stop
b. program highest;
var i, num, mark: integer;
begin
largest := 0;
readln(enter number);
read(num);
while num< >-1 do
begin
If num>largest then
largest =num;
readln(enter number);
read(num);
end;
end.

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9. a. Write a pseudocode that will accept scores of 33 batsmen in a cricket

tournament and display the number of batsmen who scored 0 and the number
who scored more than 0.
b. Using the algorithm you created in your answer to Q9a as a guide, implement
the program in Pascal.
A. a. Step 1: start
Step 2: zerocount 0
Step 3: nonzerocount 0
Step 4: for i 1 to 33
read runs
If runs>0 then
nonzerocount nonzerocount +1
else
zerocount zerocount + 1
endif
endfor
Step 5: write zerocount, nonzerocount
Step 6: stop
b. program runs;
var i, runs, zerocount, nonzerocount: integer;
begin
zerocount := 0;
nonzerocount :=0;
for i :=1 to 33
readln(enter runs of batsmen);
read(runs);
begin
If runs> 0 then
nonzerocount := nonzerocunt +1;
else
zerocount:= zerocount +1;
end;
end.

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10.Write a program in Pascal that will read sales of 50 sales men into an array and
display the sales of all sales men who have total sales more than $10,000.
A. program sales;
var
i: integer;
scores: [1 to 50] of integer;
begin
write(Storing sales in an array)
for i: = 1 to 50 do
begin
write(Enter sales);
readln(sales[i]);
end;
write (Reading sales from the array and checking for sales>1000)
for i: = 1 to 50 do
begin
if sales[i] >1000 then
writeln(sales[i]);
end;
end.

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