GCSE & IGCSE Computer Science

TOPIC 1 | DATA REPRESENTATION

1.1 NUMBER SYSTEMS

• 1.1.1 WHY COMPUTERS USE BINARY
• 1.1.2 BINARY, HEX AND CONVERSIONS
• 1.1.3 BENEFITS OF HEX
• 1.1.4 BINARY ADDITION AND OVERFLOW
• 1.1.5 BINARY SHIFTS
• 1.1.6 NEGATIVE NUMBERS AND TWO’S COMPLEMENT

1.2 TEXT, SOUND AND IMAGES

• 1.2.1 REPRESENTING TEXT
• 1.2.2 REPRESENTING SOUND
• 1.2.3 REPRESENTING IMAGES

1.3 DATA STORAGE AND COMPRESSION

• 1.3.1 MEASURING STORAGE
• 1.3.2 CALCULATING IMAGE AND SOUND FILE SIZE
• 1.3.3 PURPOSE OF COMPRESSION
• 1.3.4 LOSSY AND LOSSLESS COMPRESSION

TOPIC 2 | DATA TRANSMISSION

2.1 TYPES AND METHODS OF DATA TRANSMISSION

• 2.1.1 DATA PACKETS
• 2.1.2 SERIAL, PARALLEL, SIMPLEX AND DUPLEX
• 2.1.3 UNIVERSAL SERIAL BUS

2.2 METHODS OF ERROR DETECTION

• PARITY, CHECKSUM, CHECK DIGIT AND ARQ

2.3 ENCRYPTION

• SYMMETRIC AND ASYMMETRIC ENCRYPTION

TOPIC 3 | HARDWARE

3.1 COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE

• 3.1.1 ROLE OF THE CPU
• 3.1.2 COMPONENTS OF THE CPU
• 3.1.3 CORES, CACHE AND CLOCK SPEED
• 3.1.4 INSTRUCTION SET
• 3.1.5 EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

3.2 INPUT AND OUTPUT DEVICES

• 3.2.1 INPUT DEVICES
• 3.2.2 OUTPUT DEVICES
• 3.2.3 SENSORS

3.3 DATA STORAGE

• PRIMARY, SECONDARY AND CLOUD STORAGE

3.4 NETWORK HARDWARE

• NETWORK INTERFACE CARDS, ADDRESSES AND ROUTERS

TOPIC 4 | SOFTWARE

4.1 TYPES OF SOFTWARE AND INTERRUPTS

• 4.1.1 SYSTEM AND APPLICATION SOFTWARE
• 4.1.2 OPERATING SYSTEMS
• 4.1.3 FIRMWARE AND BOOTLOADER
• 4.1.4 INTERRUPTS

4.2 LANGUAGES, TRANSLATORS AND IDES

• 4.2.1 HIGH AND LOW LEVEL LANGUAGES
• 4.2.2 ASSEMBLY AND MACHINE CODE
• 4.2.3–4 COMPILER AND INTERPRETER
• 4.2.5 INTEGRATED DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT

TOPIC 5 | THE INTERNET AND ITS USES

5.1 INTERNET AND WORLD WIDE WEB

• 5.1.1–3 INTERNET AND THE WEB
• 5.1.4 WEB BROWSERS
• 5.1.5 WEB PROTOCOLS
• 5.1.6 COOKIES AND SESSIONS

5.2 DIGITAL CURRENCY

• 5.2.1–2 DIGITAL CURRENCY

5.3 CYBER SECURITY

• 5.3.1 CYBER SECURITY
• 5.3.2 KEEPING DATA SAFE

TOPIC 6 | AUTOMATED AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

6.1 AUTOMATED SYSTEMS

• 6.1.1 SENSORS, MICROPROCESSORS AND ACTUATORS
• 6.1.2 AUTOMATED SYSTEMS IN ACTION

6.2 ROBOTICS

• 6.2.1 ROBOTICS
• 6.2.2 CHARACTERISTICS OF A ROBOT
• 6.2.3 ROBOT ROLES

6.3 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

• 6.3.1 WHAT IS AI?
• 6.3.2 CHARACTERISTICS OF AI
• 6.3.3 OPERATIONS AND CONTROLS OF AI

TOPIC 7 | ALGORITHM DESIGN AND PROBLEM-SOLVING

Work through these lessons in syllabus order, from the foundations to complete solutions. Lesson subdivisions break larger syllabus points into manageable steps.

7.1 PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE

• 7.1.1 ANALYSIS, REQUIREMENTS AND ABSTRACTION
• 7.1.2 DESIGN, CODING AND ITERATIVE TESTING

7.2 DECOMPOSITION AND SOLUTION DESIGN

• 7.2.1 SYSTEMS, SUB-SYSTEMS AND DECOMPOSITION
• 7.2.2 INPUTS, PROCESSES, OUTPUTS AND STORAGE
• 7.2.3 STRUCTURE DIAGRAMS
• 7.2.4 FLOWCHART SYMBOLS AND CONTROL FLOW
• 7.2.5 PSEUDOCODE AND PRECISE ALGORITHM DESIGN

7.3 UNDERSTANDING ALGORITHMS

• 7.3.1 EXPLAIN THE PURPOSE AND PROCESSES OF AN ALGORITHM

7.4 STANDARD METHODS OF SOLUTION

• 7.4.1 LINEAR SEARCH
• 7.4.2 BUBBLE SORT
• 7.4.3 TOTALLING AND COUNTING
• 7.4.4 FINDING MAXIMUM, MINIMUM AND AVERAGE VALUES

7.5 VALIDATION AND VERIFICATION

• 7.5.1 RANGE, LENGTH, TYPE AND PRESENCE CHECKS
• 7.5.2 FORMAT CHECKS AND CHECK DIGITS
• 7.5.3 VISUAL CHECKS AND DOUBLE ENTRY
• 7.5.4 VALIDATION VERSUS VERIFICATION

7.6 TEST DATA

• 7.6.1 NORMAL AND ABNORMAL TEST DATA
• 7.6.2 EXTREME AND BOUNDARY TEST DATA
• 7.6.3 TEST PLANS, EXPECTED RESULTS AND ACTUAL RESULTS

7.7 TRACE TABLES

• 7.7.1 DRY RUNS, VARIABLES, OUTPUTS AND USER PROMPTS
• 7.7.2 TRACING SELECTION AND LOOPS

7.8 FINDING AND CORRECTING ERRORS

• 7.8.1 IDENTIFY AND CORRECT ALGORITHM ERRORS

7.9 WRITING AND AMENDING ALGORITHMS

• 7.9.1 BUILD A SOLUTION FROM A GIVEN SCENARIO
• 7.9.2 AMEND AND CHECK A COMPLETE ALGORITHM

TOPIC 8 | PROGRAMMING

Work through these lessons in syllabus order, from the foundations to complete solutions. Lesson subdivisions break larger syllabus points into manageable steps.

8.1 PROGRAMMING CONCEPTS

• 8.1.1 DECLARING AND USING VARIABLES AND CONSTANTS
• 8.1.2 INTEGER, REAL, CHAR, STRING AND BOOLEAN
• 8.1.3 INPUT, OUTPUT AND USER PROMPTS
• 8.1.4A SEQUENCE AND ASSIGNMENT
• 8.1.4B.1 SELECTION WITH IF, THEN AND ELSE
• 8.1.4B.2 SELECTION WITH CASE
• 8.1.4C.1 COUNT-CONTROLLED LOOPS: FOR
• 8.1.4C.2 PRE-CONDITION LOOPS: WHILE
• 8.1.4C.3 POST-CONDITION LOOPS: REPEAT UNTIL
• 8.1.4C.4 CHOOSING AND COMPARING LOOP TYPES
• 8.1.4D TOTALLING AND COUNTING IN PROGRAMS
• 8.1.4E.1 STRING LENGTH AND SUBSTRINGS
• 8.1.4E.2 UPPERCASE, LOWERCASE AND STRING POSITIONS
• 8.1.4F.1 ARITHMETIC OPERATORS, MOD AND DIV
• 8.1.4F.2 RELATIONAL AND LOGICAL OPERATORS
• 8.1.5.1 NESTED SELECTION
• 8.1.5.2 NESTED ITERATION
• 8.1.6A PROCEDURES, FUNCTIONS AND PARAMETERS
• 8.1.6B.1 DEFINE AND CALL PROCEDURES
• 8.1.6B.2 DEFINE AND CALL FUNCTIONS
• 8.1.6C LOCAL AND GLOBAL VARIABLES
• 8.1.7 LIBRARY ROUTINES: MOD, DIV, ROUND AND RANDOM
• 8.1.8 MAINTAINABLE CODE, IDENTIFIERS AND COMMENTS

8.2 ARRAYS

• 8.2.1.1 DECLARE AND USE ONE-DIMENSIONAL ARRAYS
• 8.2.1.2 DECLARE AND USE TWO-DIMENSIONAL ARRAYS
• 8.2.2 ARRAY INDEXES AND VARIABLES AS INDEXES
• 8.2.3.1 READ AND WRITE ARRAY VALUES USING LOOPS
• 8.2.3.2 NESTED LOOPS AND TWO-DIMENSIONAL ARRAYS

8.3 FILE HANDLING

• 8.3.1 WHY PROGRAMS STORE DATA IN FILES
• 8.3.2.1 OPEN, READ AND CLOSE A TEXT FILE
• 8.3.2.2 WRITE ITEMS AND LINES OF TEXT TO A FILE

TOPIC 9 | DATABASES

9 DATABASES

• 9.1 DEFINING A DATABASE
• 9.2 DATA TYPES
• 9.3 PRIMARY KEYS
• 9.4 SQL

TOPIC 10 | BOOLEAN LOGIC

10 BOOLEAN LOGIC

• LOGIC SYMBOLS AND FUNCTIONS
• USING LOGIC GATES