DP Computer Science Questionbank

Outline what would be necessary to make the above unnormalized table conform to 1st Normal Form (1NF).

Outline the relationship between the Internet and the world wide web (WWW).

Explain why the choice of browser should not affect a customer’s ability to access their bank account details.

State two features that make HTTPS more suitable than HTTP in the context of home banking.

Explain why server-side processing is used in this case.

The 20 most recent account transactions can be displayed on screen in a webpage that uses XML. A print-out of all transactions of the past three months may be obtained by clicking an onscreen button on the webpage. The print-out is landscape oriented and shows many more columns than are displayed on the screen.

Describe how this processing takes place with reference to the use of XML and XSLT.

Describe how a wiki can support the ongoing collaboration in producing the triathletes’ resource.

State the reason why the above link is a URL.

Outline the processing that takes place when the line of code above is executed.

The RunAndBeyond website continually automatically updates its content regarding a live sporting event.

Suggest how a dynamic web page would function in providing this service to the user.

Outline the functioning of this app. Include specific references to the technology and software involved.

With reference to the use on mobile devices, outline a feature of this application that may rely on client-side scripting.

Identify two ways that a cascading style sheet (CSS) can be used to ensure web pages are compatible with different screen sizes and formats.

Explain the processing this code enables on the server before search.php is sent to the client.

With reference to the URL https://home.cern/topics/large-hadron-collider

State the protocol used.

With reference to the URL https://home.cern/topics/large-hadron-collider

Identify the steps taken by the domain name server when the scientist enters a URL such as https://home.cern into their web browser.

Define the term extensibility.

Outline one advantage of XML for sharing data on the web.

Distinguish between a blog and a forum.

To what extent has the use of social media, blogs and forums enabled the head librarian to be a more effective decision maker?

Identify two characteristics of HTML.

Discuss the benefits and disadvantages of the template including a CSS file in addition to the HTML page.

Explain why TCP/IP is a reliable protocol in relation to downloading operations.

Evaluate the use of server-side scripting to provide the mechanism for registration.

Outline, with an example, how the URL for these new pieces of code will be generated.

Outline the steps that the script could perform for sending out these notifications.

A fragment of a script and a web form are provided below.
In the script some functions are not implemented, and only their specification is provided.

<?php
  //include a database of urls
  include('url_db.php');
  $url = $short = "";

  if ($_SERVER["REQUEST_METHOD"] == "POST")
  { $url = $_POST['url'];
    $short = make_short($url);
    function make_short($u)
    { $x = make_alpha_string($u);
      $y = first4_last4($x);
      $z = limits($x);
      $v = $y. ".".$z;   //string concatenation
      return $v;
  }

  function make_alpha_string($u)
  { // It removes, in this order: substrings corresponding to
    // protocol names, the substring www, and all characters
    // except for letters
  }

  function first4_last4($u)
  { // It returns the string made of the first 4 characters
    // followed by the last 4 characters of $u
  }

  function limits($u)
  { // It returns the string made of the first character and
    // last character of $u
  }

  mysql_query("
    INSERT INTO url_db(orig_url, short_url, url_ip) VALUES
    ( '".$_POST['url']."',
      '".$short."',
      '".$_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']."'
    )
  ");
 }
?>

<form method="post" action="">
URL:
<input type="text" name="url" />
<br><br>
<input type="submit" name="Submit" value="Submit" />
</form>

Describe the processing that occurs when the form is filled with the URL https://www.the2nd.org/bin.php?id=70 that the server discovers is associated with the IP address 172.16.254.1.

Identify three differences between a static web page and dynamic web page.

Suggest two services, and the benefits that they would provide, if the museum were to redesign its website to be dynamic.

Outline one technical reason for restricting the number of podcasts to eight.

State one format for an audio file.

Outline one reason for this problem.

These podcasts are normally displayed on the website in the chronological order in which they were added, with the most recent on top. However, users who regularly access the site for science podcasts, may see them presented in a different order, with all the scientific ones on top.

With reference to the technology involved, explain how this is made possible.

Describe how this URL provides security in communication over the Internet.

Identify the steps that the Domain Name System (DNS) server will take in order to locate the correct IP address for this request from the browser.

Outline how the footer of a web page can be made identical across all pages of a website.

Suggest the function of this fragment of code.

Users may perform several actions on their shopping baskets. These actions require interaction with a central database of products. Each record in this database includes the identifier, the name and the price of one of these products.

Consider the following fragment of code:

<
$basket = new Basket
  …

If $_REQUEST['action'] == 'removeBasketItem' && !empty($_REQUEST['id']){
remove($basket, $_REQUEST['id']);
header("view_basket.php");
}
>

From the code, identify the information that the user has provided.

State the protocol used in the company’s website.

Explain the importance of protocols on the World Wide Web.

State the type of scripting used in the php code.

State one inbuilt function along with parameters used in the php code.

Describe the processing that occurs when the subscribe button is clicked.

Identify one additional method of online interaction that can be incorporated in this website.

Explain one function of a web browser.

Describe how a domain name server (DNS) functions.

State the output of the index.html file in the web browser.

Describe the processing that takes place when the user inputs “Pugh” into the text box and then uses the clickme button.

Explain why these two validation checks occur on different computer systems.

Explain how website certificates are used to authenticate a user’s browser through secure protocol communications like HTTPS.

Describe the working of the common gateway interface (CGI).

Distinguish between the internet and the World Wide Web.

Outline what would be necessary to make the above unnormalized table conform to 1st Normal Form (1NF).

State two metrics used by search engines.

Explain why maintaining a clean HTML source code of a website by removing old information optimizes the search process.

Describe two ways in which the site developers could use white hat optimization to improve the site’s search engine ranking.

Explain how the provision of services on the museum’s website can increase its rankings in search engines.

It is also suggested that the museum’s basic catalogue be revised and upgraded with all of the museum’s pieces being catalogued using meta-tags.

Suggest how the use of meta-tags can be relevant for search engine optimization.

Harvest wishes to improve its ranking in the major search engines.

Discuss whether Harvest should use black hat search engine optimization techniques in order to improve its ranking.

OrderYourFoods is concerned that it never appears close to the top of the list of search results when the term “food delivery” is typed into a search engine.

OrderYourFoods has decided to use black hat search engine optimization techniques to be more visible in search engines.

Evaluate this decision.

Define the term search engine.

Distinguish between the principles of these two algorithms.

Outline why a search engine using the HITS algorithm might produce different page ranking from one using the PageRank algorithm.

Web crawlers browse the World Wide Web.

Explain how data stored in a meta-tag is used by a web crawler.

Outline what would be necessary to make the above unnormalized table conform to 1st Normal Form (1NF).

Suggest why lossy compression should be the compression technique used.

The evolution of the web, architectures, protocols and their uses has led to increasingly sophisticated services that run on peer-2-peer (P2P) architectures.

Explain how a P2P network can provide more reliability than a client-server model.

Distinguish between lossy and lossless compression.

Explain why the developers at Sestra.com would use lossless compression for the pdf documents.

Explain two reasons why CERN would use grid computing to support its research.

Distinguish between open standards and interoperability.

Describe the role of the common gateway interface (CGI) in processing search requests made via the web form.

Evaluate lossy compression and lossless compression when used to download files.

Compare these two approaches for a person who downloads or streams these podcasts.

State the alternative type of compression to lossy.

Evaluate the advantages and disadvantages for students of using compressed images in their IB Coursework.

A PNG image uses open standards.

Distinguish between interoperability and open standards.

Explain why a distributed network such as the World Wide Web may act as a catalyst to increase the collaboration between different IB World Schools.

Outline two advantages of using open standards.

Explain why users have concerns about opening up ports to upload and download data.

Outline what would be necessary to make the above unnormalized table conform to 1st Normal Form (1NF).

Instead of copyrighting its experimental results, CERN has decided to publish its experimental results using Creative Commons licensing.

Explain two reasons why CERN would publish its experimental results using Creative Commons licensing.

Explain how the user’s privacy can be maintained whilst using this method of authentication.

Identify two actions relating to the source of these podcasts that should be taken by the newspaper before publishing them.

Outline one technical challenge that Harvest may encounter in setting up its own website with the technologies that it has available.

Explain how the use of cloud-based services may help Harvest to overcome the limitations of the available technologies.

Describe two problems this may cause for an organizsation such as Harvest.

Describe the difference between cloud computing and local client-server architecture.

Explain how the use of a distributed network, such as the World Wide Web, may lead to copyright and intellectual property issues.

Pugh University uses cloud computing services, such as Google Docs or Office 365.

Describe how cloud computing is different to a client–server architecture.

Distinguish between the surface web and the deep web.

Explain how a user’s anonymity can be maintained while accessing the dark web.

The founders of the World Wide Web intended it to be a decentralized and democratic environment.

To what extent have the aspirations of the founders of the World Wide Web been met?

Outline what would be necessary to make the above unnormalized table conform to 1st Normal Form (1NF).

Identify the nodes that represent web pages in the strongly connected core (SCC).

Identify the nodes that represent web pages connected by a tube.

Outline why web page E would be given a higher ranking than web page C using the PageRank algorithm.

Identify three criteria that may be used by a web crawler to decide whether to index a web page or not.

The following information shows the number of active users (in millions) on different social media sites.

Discuss whether the application of power laws is appropriate to predict the future number of active users on these social media sites.

Identify the nodes in the strongly connected core.

Identify the set of OUT nodes.

Identify two reasons why an edge may disappear in the new graph, for example the edge between node 5 and node 4.

Power laws are often used to model phenomena occurring in very large networks and predict their evolution. Power laws may be suitably applied in different cases, in the context of the World Wide Web.

With reference to the relation between the number of documents in the web and the number of hyperlinks in each of them, suggest how power laws may help to explain the shape of the World Wide Web.

Explain the role that web crawlers perform in developing this index.

Draw a directed graph based on the scenario.

Describe the role of graph theory in determining the connectivity of the World Wide Web.

Describe how a web graph can be used to represent the connectivity of the World Wide Web.

Explain why a user can still navigate from one web page to another web page in the same amount of time as previously, even though the number of web pages is significantly larger.

Outline what would be necessary to make the above unnormalized table conform to 1st Normal Form (1NF).

Outline one advantage for Narayan City of using collective intelligence to solve complex problems such as changing the layout of roads.

Many social networking sites allow users to classify their posts and responses, for example by adding one or more “hashtags”.

To what extent does the increasing number of social networking sites and the creation of folksonomies contribute to web users modifying their online behaviour?

Discuss the technologies that ambient intelligence uses in this specific scenario.

With a focus on privacy, discuss how traffic data from WiFi communication through smartphones can be used in this scenario.

With the use of an example, explain how a multimedia search in the semantic web would be preferable to a text based search for this student.

Identify three differences between an ontology and a folksonomy.

Discuss whether it is possible to integrate the expressivity of folksonomies with the authoritativeness of ontologies.

Open source software, such as Linux, is often developed by using the collective intelligence of the developer community.

Explain how collective intelligence can lead to the successful development of open source software.

Outline two issues that may arise from using a non-text based search.

OBI has decided to gather information for one project by utilizing collective intelligence.

Evaluate this decision.

Southend Council in England is considering whether to use Pepper, a humanoid robot, to assist some elderly residents that live in care homes. These elderly residents suffer from memory loss and would rely on Pepper to direct them them to and from the local shops. Pepper uses ambient intelligence and is connected to the Internet of Things (IoT).

Explain why Southend Council may have concerns about introducing Pepper for this purpose.

Outline two reasons why there needs to be a balance between expressivity and usability on the semantic web.

Identify two features of ambient intelligence.

Evaluate the role of collective intelligence in the advancement of human knowledge.