Programming: past paper questions

Where the questions come from

• Question 1May/June 2026, paper 21Structured2 marks

  Study this pseudocode: FOR i ← 3 TO 12 STEP 3 OUTPUT i, i * i NEXT i Identify the type of construct used in this pseudocode.

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• Question 1Oct/Nov 2025, paper 21Structured10 marks

  Refer to the insert for the list of pseudocode functions and operators. 1 A program is being developed to meet a particular customer requirement.

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• Question 1Oct/Nov 2024, paper 21Structured9 marks

  Refer to the insert for the list of pseudocode functions and operators. 1 A program will calculate the tax payable based on the cost of an item.

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• Question 1Oct/Nov 2023, paper 21Structured11 marks

  Refer to the insert for the list of pseudocode functions and operators.

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• Question 2May/June 2026, paper 21Structured7 marks

  A washing machine contains: • two trays for the washing powder • a user interface display • five sensors.

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• Question 5Oct/Nov 2025, paper 21Structured6 marks

  A program is being designed in pseudocode.

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• Question 2Oct/Nov 2024, paper 21Structured6 marks

  2 A program uses three global integer variables HH, MM and SS to represent the current time in hours, minutes and seconds using the 24-hour clock notation. Midnight would be represented as 00:00:00 (HH:MM:SS).

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• Question 2Oct/Nov 2023, paper 21Structured7 marks

  An algorithm is expressed as follows: • input 100 numbers, one at a time • keep a total of all numbers input that have a value between 30 and 70 inclusive and output this total after the last number has been input.

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• Question 5May/June 2026, paper 21Structured5 marks

  Electric light bulbs are advertised online with the price showing: $1.75 each or 20 bulbs for $30.00 A pseudocode function BulbCost() • takes the quantity of bulbs purchased as its single parameter • returns the total cost in dollars.

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• Question 1Oct/Nov 2025, paper 22Structured11 marks

  Refer to the insert for the list of pseudocode functions and operators. The table contains pseudocode examples. Each example may contain statements that relate to one or more of: • selection • iteration (repetition) • subroutines (procedures or functions).

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• Question 4Oct/Nov 2024, paper 21Structured10 marks

  4 A program includes the following assignment statement: Result ← STR_TO_NUM(x) / STR_TO_NUM(y) When the program evaluates the expression in the statement, it performs a calculation. Variable Result is of type real and variables x and y are of type string.

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• Question 4Oct/Nov 2023, paper 21Structured9 marks

  A global array is declared in pseudocode as follows: DECLARE Data : ARRAY[1:150] OF STRING A function TooMany() will: 1. take two parameters: • a string (the search string) • an integer (the maximum value) 2.

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• Question 6May/June 2026, paper 21Structured12 marks

  Fence parts are manufactured by a number of similar machines. The length of the part must fall within a certain range. Parts not within the length range are rejected.

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• Question 6Oct/Nov 2025, paper 22Structured7 marks

  A string function Compare() will compare two strings.

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• Question 6Oct/Nov 2024, paper 21Structured9 marks

  6 A factory produces food items. The items must be used within a certain number of days after their production date. The number of days is known as the shelf life.

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• Question 6Oct/Nov 2023, paper 21Structured9 marks

  The pseudocode OUTPUT command starts each output on a new line. A new procedure MyOutput() will take a string and a Boolean parameter.

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• Question 5May/June 2026, paper 22Structured10 marks

  5 A programmer has defined a global 1D array Numbers of type INTEGER, which can store 1000 integers. The lower bound of the array Numbers is set to 1. Each element of the array has been initialised with a random integer in the range 200 to 99999.

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• Question 7Oct/Nov 2025, paper 22Structured6 marksHas a diagram

  The structure chart shows part of a program design: Explain the meaning of the curved arrow symbol in this structure chart.

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• Question 7Oct/Nov 2024, paper 21Structured7 marksHas a diagram

  7 A program contains six modules with headers as follows: | Pseudocode module header | | :--- | | PROCEDURE Connect() | | FUNCTION Activate(H1 : STRING, Code…

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• Question 8Oct/Nov 2023, paper 21Structured19 marks

  A class of students are developing a program to send data between computers. Many computers are connected together to form a wired network. Serial ports are used to connect one computer to another.

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• Question 6May/June 2026, paper 22Structured18 marks

  6 A program is being developed to encrypt a message. The following terms are used in the encryption technique to be used: | term | definition | |---|---| | plain text | The original message before it is encrypted. | | cipher text | The encrypted version of the plain text.

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• Question 8Oct/Nov 2025, paper 22Structured18 marks

  A program is being developed to manage student book loans from a college library. The programmer has defined a record type to define each loan.

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• Question 8Oct/Nov 2024, paper 21Structured15 marks

  8 An exam paper has a maximum of 75 marks. One of five pass grades (A to E) is assigned, depending on the mark obtained. The lowest mark for a given grade is known as the grade boundary.

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• Question 1Oct/Nov 2023, paper 22Structured11 marks

  Refer to the insert for the list of pseudocode functions and operators. 1 A shop sells car accessories. A customer order is created if an item cannot be supplied from current stock.

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• Question 1May/June 2026, paper 23Structured2 marks

  Refer to the insert for the list of pseudocode functions and operators. Study the pseudocode. i ← 1 REPEAT OUTPUT i*i i ← i + 1 UNTIL i = 6 Identify the type of programming construct used in the pseudocode.

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• Question 1Oct/Nov 2025, paper 23Structured10 marks

  A user requires a program that implements complex data encryption to a recognised international standard. A programmer has started the design of the program. The programmer decides to use a library routine to provide part of the solution.

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• Question 2Oct/Nov 2024, paper 22Structured9 marks

  A program is being developed to process bank card information. When a card number is displayed, all the characters except the last four are replaced with the asterisk character '*'. Card numbers are stored as strings.

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• Question 2Oct/Nov 2023, paper 22Structured7 marksHas a diagram

  An algorithm will: 1. input a sequence of integer values, one at a time 2. ignore all values until the value 27 is input, then sum the remaining values in the sequence 3.

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• Question 2May/June 2026, paper 23Structured6 marks

  A control program is being developed for a robot floor vacuum cleaner. The settings for the robot can be changed and include: • the strength of the suction (numerical values: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5) • the total vacuum cleaning time (a whole number of minutes).

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• Question 2Oct/Nov 2025, paper 23Structured8 marks

  A program contains a global 1D array of type STRING containing 65 elements. An existing text file is used to store the data in the array. Only non-blank elements (those that do not contain an empty string) are written to the text file.

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