Programming concepts: past paper questions

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• Question 2May/June 2026, paper 21Structured4 marks

  Identify four operators that are not arithmetic operators from the list.

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• Question 3Oct/Nov 2025, paper 21Multiple choice1 mark

  Tick (✓) one box to identify the operator that returns the quotient of a calculation with the fractional part discarded.

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• Question 3Oct/Nov 2024, paper 21Structured4 marks

  Four operators and three types of operator are shown. Draw one or more lines from each operator to its correct operator type.

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• Question 1Oct/Nov 2023, paper 21Multiple choice1 mark

  Tick (✓) one box to show which operator means less than or equal to.

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• Question 3May/June 2026, paper 21Structured3 marks

  Complete the table by writing the most appropriate data type for each variable described.

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• Question 10Oct/Nov 2025, paper 21Structured5 marks

  The variables Seconds and Minutes are used in a program. Seconds holds the number of seconds as a whole number and Minutes holds the number of minutes as a whole number. Write pseudocode statements to declare the variables Seconds and Minutes

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• Question 6Oct/Nov 2024, paper 21Structured9 marksHas a diagram

  An incomplete algorithm has been written in pseudocode to count the number of zeros stored in an array and total the non-zero values.

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• Question 2Oct/Nov 2023, paper 21Multiple choice1 mark

  Tick (✓) one box to show how a value can be passed to a procedure.

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• Question 5May/June 2026, paper 21Structured12 marks

  A computer system automatically creates usernames for new users. A new user enters their first name and their last name.

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• Question 11Oct/Nov 2025, paper 21Structured15 marks

  The scores for each competitor in an archery competition are recorded. The one-dimensional (1D) array CompetitorName[] is used to store the names of the competitors. The maximum number of competitors is 30.

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• Question 8Oct/Nov 2024, paper 21Structured11 marksHas a diagram

  A programmer is designing a program to check the length of a password and to check if the password input is the same as the stored password.

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• Question 3Oct/Nov 2023, paper 21Structured4 marks

  Four descriptions of data and five data types are shown. Draw one line to link each description to the most appropriate data type.

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• Question 6May/June 2026, paper 21Structured4 marks

  Give programming examples for a count-controlled loop and a post-condition loop.

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• Question 1Oct/Nov 2025, paper 22Multiple choice1 mark

  Tick (✓) one box to complete this sentence.

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• Question 11Oct/Nov 2024, paper 21Structured15 marks

  A running club has 200 members who compete in a 1-kilometre running competition every month.

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• Question 4Oct/Nov 2023, paper 21Structured3 marks

  Circle the three words representing places where data may be stored. array constant dimension input output procedure variable Circle the three words representing places where data may be stored. array constant dimension input output procedure variable

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• Question 7May/June 2026, paper 21Structured4 marksHas a diagram

  An algorithm has been written in pseudocode for a user to repeatedly input positive whole numbers and store them in an array called Values[] until –1 is input or until the array is full. The algorithm outputs the average of the numbers to 2 decimal places.

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• Question 2Oct/Nov 2025, paper 22Structured15 marks

  This pseudocode algorithm is intended to input a first name from a user and search for it in a two-dimensional (2D) array.

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• Question 10Oct/Nov 2023, paper 21Structured15 marks

  Drama students put on a performance of a play for one evening. Seats in a small theatre can be booked for this performance. The theatre has 10 rows of 20 seats.

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• Question 11May/June 2026, paper 21Structured5 marks

  The function Power(FirstNumber, SecondNumber) returns the value of FirstNumber raised to the power of SecondNumber. FirstNumber and SecondNumber are integers.

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• Question 4Oct/Nov 2025, paper 22Structured7 marksHas a diagram

  A length check is a type of validation check. State the purpose of a length check.

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• Question 10Oct/Nov 2024, paper 22Structured6 marks

  The function LENGTH(X) calculates the length of a string X Write the pseudocode statements to: • allow a line of text to be input to an appropriate variable •…

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• Question 5Oct/Nov 2023, paper 22Structured3 marks

  Explain how variables and constants should be used when creating and running a program.

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• Question 12May/June 2026, paper 21Structured15 marks

  A weather monitoring station records the number of minutes of sunshine for each day of a month. The one-dimensional (1D) array Sunshine[] is used to store the number of minutes of sunshine for each day. The index of the array represents the day.

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• Question 8Oct/Nov 2025, paper 22Structured15 marks

  A program is required to test the fairness of the random number generator. The one-dimensional (1D) array RandomNumber[] is used to store 100000 random integers.

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• Question 12Oct/Nov 2024, paper 22Structured15 marks

  A one-dimensional (1D) array Rooms[] contains the names of up to 20 rooms in a house. A two-dimensional (2D) array Dimensions[] is used to store the length, width and area of each room. The position of any room’s data is the same in both arrays.

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• Question 7Oct/Nov 2023, paper 22Structured5 marks

  The string operation SUBSTRING(Quote, Start, Number) returns a string from Quote beginning at position Start that is Number characters long. The first character in Quote is in position 1.

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• Question 1May/June 2026, paper 22Multiple choice1 mark

  Tick (✓) one box to complete the following sentence.

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• Question 1Oct/Nov 2025, paper 23Structured3 marks

  Give three ways of creating a maintainable program.

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• Question 6Oct/Nov 2024, paper 23Structured9 marks

  An incomplete algorithm has been written in pseudocode to count the number of values stored in an array and to find their average.

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