Cambridge International Examinations

Cambridge International Advanced Subsidiary and Advanced Level

* 7 8 4 8 8 7 8 2 5 0 *

COMPUTER SCIENCE 9608/21

Paper 2 Fundamental Problem-solving and Programming Skills October/November 2017
2 hours
Candidates answer on the Question Paper.
No Additional Materials are required.
No calculators allowed.

READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST

Write your Centre number, candidate number and name in the spaces at the top of this page.
Write in dark blue or black pen.
You may use an HB pencil for any diagrams, graphs or rough working.
Do not use staples, paper clips, glue or correction fluid.
DO NOT WRITE IN ANY BARCODES.

Answer all questions.

No marks will be awarded for using brand names of software packages or hardware.

At the end of the examination, fasten all your work securely together.
The number of marks is given in brackets [ ] at the end of each question or part question.

The maximum number of marks is 75.

This document consists of 14 printed pages and 2 blank pages.

DC (NH) 133470/3
© UCLES 2017 [Turn over
 2

1 (a) (i) Procedural high-level languages usually support different data types.

Give an appropriate data type for each data value in the following table.

Data value Data type

27
"27"
"27.3"
TRUE
27/3/2015
27.3
[6]

(ii) State an appropriate data structure to store the individual test scores for a class of
students.

.......................................................................................................................................[1]

(iii) Describe how characters are represented using the ASCII character set.

...........................................................................................................................................

...........................................................................................................................................

...........................................................................................................................................

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

(b) Functions and procedures are subroutines.

Explain why you should use subroutines when designing a program solution.

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

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

© UCLES 2017 9608/21/O/N/17

 3

(c) The following pseudocode is an example of nested IF statements.

IF MyVar = 1
THEN
CALL Proc1()
ELSE
IF MyVar = 2
THEN
CALL Proc2()
ELSE
IF MyVar = 3
THEN
CALL Proc3()
ELSE
OUTPUT "Error"
ENDIF
ENDIF
ENDIF

Use pseudocode to write a CASE statement with the same functionality.

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...............................................................................................................................................[4]

(d) Program coding is a transferable skill.

You are given program code written in a high-level language that you have not studied.

State two different features of the code that you should be able to recognise.

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

...................................................................................................................................................

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

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

© UCLES 2017 9608/21/O/N/17 [Turn over

 4

2 The following pseudocode represents a simple algorithm.

DECLARE NumberFound, Remainder, Number : INTEGER

DECLARE StartNumber, EndNumber, Divisor : INTEGER

INPUT StartNumber
INPUT EndNumber
INPUT Divisor
NumberFound 0

FOR Number StartNumber TO EndNumber

Remainder MODULUS(Number, Divisor)
IF Remainder = 0
THEN
OUTPUT Number
NumberFound NumberFound + 1
ENDIF
ENDFOR
OUTPUT "Count: " & NumberFound

For the built-in functions list, refer to the Appendix on page 14.

(a) Complete the following trace table.

StartNumber EndNumber Divisor NumberFound Number Remainder Output

11 13 2 0

[3]

(b) Describe the purpose of this algorithm.

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

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

© UCLES 2017 9608/21/O/N/17

 5

(c) Draw a program flowchart to represent this algorithm.

Variable declarations are not required in program flowcharts.

[10]

© UCLES 2017 9608/21/O/N/17 [Turn over

 6

3 (a) A multi-user computer system stores information about users. It uses a 1D array,
UserNameArray, of type STRING. There are 100 elements in the array.

The format of the string in each element of the array is as follows:

<UserID><UserName>

• UserID is a six-character string of numerals.

• UserName is a variable-length string.

Write pseudocode for a procedure, BubbleSort, to perform an efficient bubble sort on

UserNameArray. The array is to be sorted in ascending order of UserID.

You should assume that UserNameArray has been declared as a global variable.

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

© UCLES 2017 9608/21/O/N/17

 7

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...............................................................................................................................................[8]

© UCLES 2017 9608/21/O/N/17 [Turn over

 8

(b) The value of UserID should be unique for each user but a problem has occurred and
repeated UserID values may have been issued.

The array is sorted by UserID, so any repeated UserID values will appear in consecutive
array elements.

A procedure, FindRepeats is required.

This will:

• compare each element with the previous element and output the UserID and UserName
if the UserID is repeated
• output the total number of UserIDs that are repeated.

For example, the UserNameArray contains the following entries.

Array element Comment

122222Jim Moriarty

123456Fred Smith
123456Eric Sykes Repeated User ID
123456Kevin Turvey Repeated User ID

222244Alice Chan
222244Myra Singh Repeated User ID

333333Yasmin Halim

For this example, the output is:

123456Eric Sykes
123456Kevin Turvey
222244Myra Singh
There are 3 repeated UserIDs

If no repeated UserIDs are found, the output is:

The array contains no repeated UserIDs

© UCLES 2017 9608/21/O/N/17
 9

Write program code for the procedure, FindRepeats.

You should assume that UserNameArray has been declared as a global variable.

Visual Basic and Pascal: You should include the declaration statements for variables.
Python: You should show a comment statement for each variable used with its data type.

Programming language ............................................................................................................

Program code

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...............................................................................................................................................[8]

© UCLES 2017 9608/21/O/N/17 [Turn over

 10

(c) (i) The FindRepeats procedure forms part of a program.

Name three stages in a program development cycle.

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

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

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

(ii) The program containing FindRepeats will be created using an IDE.

State what is meant by IDE.

...........................................................................................................................................

.......................................................................................................................................[1]

(iii) Name two features provided by an IDE that assist in the program development cycle.

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

...........................................................................................................................................

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

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

(iv) The procedure, FindRepeats, is written assuming there are 100 elements in
UserNameArray.

In the main program, the global array, UserNameArray, has been declared with only
50 elements.

State the type of error this will cause.

.......................................................................................................................................[1]

© UCLES 2017 9608/21/O/N/17

 11

4 Numeric formatting converts a numeric value to a string in order to present it in a specific way.

In a generic high-level language, formatting is implemented using a mask system. In this system,
each character of the mask corresponds to one character of the formatted string.

Mask characters have the following meaning:

Mask character Meaning

# Character must be a digit or a space
0 Character must be a digit

Any other mask characters are taken as literal values and are included in the formatted string.

(a) Using the mask "###00.00", complete the following table. Use □ to represent a space. The
first value has been done for you.

Value Formatted string

1327.5 "□1327.50"
1234
7.456
[2]

(b) For each row in the following table, define the mask required to produce the formatted output
from the given value. □ represents a space.

Value Required output Mask

1234.00 "1,234.00"
3445.66 "£3,445.66"
10345.56 "$□ □10,345"
[3]

© UCLES 2017 9608/21/O/N/17 [Turn over

 12

5 A sports club maintains a record of the email address of each of its members. The details are
stored in a text file, EmailDetails.txt. The format of each line of the text file is as follows:

<MembershipNumber><EmailAddress>

• MembershipNumber is a four-character string of numerals.

• EmailAddress is a variable-length string.

Membership of the club has increased and a four-character membership number is no longer
adequate.

A procedure, MakeNewFile, is required to perform the following actions:

1. Create a new file, NewEmailDetails.txt

2. Read a line from file EmailDetails.txt
3. Extend MembershipNumber by adding two leading zero digits (for example, "1234"
becomes "001234")
4. Write the new line to file NewEmailDetails.txt
5. Repeat steps 2 to 4 for all lines in the original file.

(a) Write pseudocode for the procedure MakeNewFile.

For the built-in functions list, refer to the Appendix on page 14.

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...............................................................................................................................................[8]
© UCLES 2017 9608/21/O/N/17
 13

(b) A function, IsEmailValid, is to be written to test for a valid email address format.

An email address has a valid format if it obeys the following three rules:

1. It contains a single ‘@’ symbol.

2. The ‘@’ symbol must be preceded by at least one character.
3. The ‘@’ symbol must be followed by at least three characters.

Choose three different invalid strings to test distinct aspects of the rules.

Explain your choice in each case.

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

Explanation ...............................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

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

Explanation ...............................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

3 ................................................................................................................................................

Explanation ...............................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................

...................................................................................................................................................
[6]

© UCLES 2017 9608/21/O/N/17 [Turn over

 14

Appendix
Built-in functions (pseudocode)
In each function, if the function call is not properly formed, the function returns an error.

MODULUS(x : INTEGER, y : INTEGER) RETURNS INTEGER

returns the remainder when x is divided by y using integer arithmetic.

Example: MODULUS(5, 2) returns 1

INT(x : REAL) RETURNS INTEGER

returns the integer part of x.

Example: INT(27.5415) returns 27

LENGTH(ThisString : STRING) RETURNS INTEGER

returns the integer value representing the length of string ThisString.

Example: LENGTH("Happy Days") returns 10

LEFT(ThisString : STRING, x : INTEGER) RETURNS STRING

returns leftmost x characters from ThisString.

Example: LEFT("ABCDEFGH", 3) returns string "ABC"

RIGHT(ThisString: STRING, x : INTEGER) RETURNS STRING

returns rightmost x characters from ThisString.

Example: RIGHT("ABCDEFGH", 3) returns string "FGH"

Operators (pseudocode)

Operator Description
Concatenates (joins) two strings
&
Example: "Summer" & " " & "Pudding" produces "Summer Pudding"
Performs a logical AND on two Boolean values
AND
Example: TRUE AND FALSE produces FALSE
Performs a logical OR on two Boolean values
OR
Example: TRUE OR FALSE produces TRUE
© UCLES 2017 9608/21/O/N/17
 15

BLANK PAGE

© UCLES 2017 9608/21/O/N/17

 16

BLANK PAGE

Permission to reproduce items where third-party owned material protected by copyright is included has been sought and cleared where possible. Every
reasonable effort has been made by the publisher (UCLES) to trace copyright holders, but if any items requiring clearance have unwittingly been included, the
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 International
Examinations Copyright Acknowledgements Booklet. This is produced for each series of examinations and is freely available to download at www.cie.org.uk after
the live examination series.

Cambridge International Examinations is part of the Cambridge Assessment Group. Cambridge Assessment is the brand name of University of Cambridge Local
Examinations Syndicate (UCLES), which is itself a department of the University of Cambridge.

© UCLES 2017 9608/21/O/N/17