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Date November 2019 Marks available 2 Reference code 19N.1.SL.TZ0.1
Level SL Paper 1 Time zone no time zone
Command term Distinguish Question number 1 Adapted from N/A

Question

Identify one fundamental operation of a computer.

[1]
a.

Distinguish between fundamental and compound operations of a computer.

[2]
b.

Markscheme

Award [1 max].
Retrieve;
Compare;
Store;
Add;

a.

Award [2 max].
Fundamental operation requires one machine instruction cycle/do not require the processor to go through many machine instruction cycles to reach a result;
A compound operation is complex / it is an operation that involves a number of other operations to reach the result;
For example, find the largest number in an array/ sort the array in ascending order etc.;

b.

Examiners report

Candidates were generally able to identify a fundamental operation of a computer, such as retrieve, compare, store or add.

a.

Candidates were generally able to describe correctly the meaning of complex operations of a computer but were less clear in their descriptions of fundamental operations, so as to distinguish the two terms.

b.

Syllabus sections

Topic 4: Computational thinking, problem-solving and programming » 4.3 Introduction to programming
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Topic 4: Computational thinking, problem-solving and programming

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