Cambridge IGCSE™ and O Level Computer Science

Answers to Computer Systems

Workbook
1 Data representation
1 a 165 = 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1
b 165 = A 5
2 a 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 0 = 118
b 5 F = 95
c 101011000100=AC4
d 3 E D = (0 0) 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 0 1
3 a 800 × 16 = 12 800 MiB
b 12 800/1024 = 12.5 GiB
4 a i 65 = 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1
ii 97 = 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1
b i V = 86
ii v = 118
c i 86 = 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 0
ii 118 = 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 0
d Lower-case letters have an ASCII code value which is + 32 when compared to the
equivalent upper-case letter, therefore to convert from an upper-case value, simply place
a '1' in the column with value 32.
M = 77 = 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 and m = 77 + 32 = 109 = 0 1 1 …
5 a
0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1

b i
1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0

ii 132
c i R = 27 = 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 1
r = 108 = 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 0
ii M = 22 = 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 0
m = 88 = 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 0

Cambridge IGCSE and O Level Computer Science Teacher's Guide 1

© David Watson and Helen Williams 2021
 Cambridge IGCSE and O Level Computer Science Computer Systems Workbook answers

6 a 44801 = A F 0 1
b 1010 1111 0000 0001
7 Three from:
• memory dumps
• error codes
• MAC addresses
• IP addresses
• HTML colour codes
8

Cambridge IGCSE and O Level Computer Science Teacher's Guide 2

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 Cambridge IGCSE and O Level Computer Science Computer Systems Workbook answers

9 a i Number X D OUTPUT

220 220 128

92 1

64

28 1

32

−4 0

28

16

12 1

4 1

0 1

−2 0

−1 0

0 end

Cambridge IGCSE and O Level Computer Science Teacher's Guide 3

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 Cambridge IGCSE and O Level Computer Science Computer Systems Workbook answers

ii Number X D OUTPUT

73 73 128

−55 0

73

64

9 1

32

−23 0

16

−7 0

1 1

−3 0

−1 0

0 1

0 end

b The flowchart is converting denary (base 10) numbers into 8-bit binary (base 2) numbers.
10 a i 94
ii 61
b i 10011011
ii 155
This is equal to 94 + 61 in denary.

Cambridge IGCSE and O Level Computer Science Teacher's Guide 4

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 Cambridge IGCSE and O Level Computer Science Computer Systems Workbook answers

11 a largest number = 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 = 255

b i 01110111+10011101=1 00010100
ii A ninth bit is generated therefore overflow error has occurred (i.e. the result exceeded
the largest possible number which can be stored using 8 bits).
12 a 32 + 16 + 8 + 4 = 60
b i 00011110
ii denary value = 30
iii 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 – result is 7 which is incorrect (30 ÷ 4 = 7.5); 1-bit has been lost
c i 11110000
ii Value is 240 which is equivalent to 60 × 22 – this is because each logical shift left
multiplies the original binary number by 2. Two shifts left multiplies by 22 = 4.
13 a 37 = 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 and 19 = 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 1
b 00111000
c 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0; denary value of (b) is 56; after logical shift, value is 56 × 22 = 224
d 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 – value after shift is 3 which is incorrect since 56 ÷ 24 = 3.5; a 1-bit has
been lost
14 a −128
b i Most negative is 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 = −128
ii Most positive is 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 = +127
c i 47 = 0 0 1 0 1 1 1 1
ii −59 = 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 1
d i 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 0 = −50
ii 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 = −2
e i 45 = 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1
ii −45 = 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1
iii 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 – in two’s complement the final carry to the 9th bit does not signify
overflow. We ignore this bit and consider the other 8 bits, which do give the correct
answer of zero.
15 a (4096 × 2048 × 16)/(8 × 1024 × 1024) = 16 MiB
4096 × 2048
× 16 and ÷ 8
divide by 1024 × 1024
16 MiB
b size of sample = (number of samples per sec) × (number of bits per sample)
× (length of sample size in secs) = (40 960 × 16 × 1024) bits
multiply by 2 for stereo recording and divide by 8 to get number of bytes
divide by (1024 × 1024)
to give 160 MiB
(40 960 × 16 × 2 × 1024)/(8 × 1024 × 1024) = 160 MiB

Cambridge IGCSE and O Level Computer Science Teacher's Guide 5

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 Cambridge IGCSE and O Level Computer Science Computer Systems Workbook answers

16 a It saves storage space on the HDD/SSD.

It is faster to upload/download files to/from the internet.
It reduces the file size which allows the file to be emailed.
b Lossless – all data from the original file can be reconstructed when the file is
uncompressed again.
Lossy – the compression algorithm eliminates unnecessary data from the original file;
the original file cannot be reconstructed once it has been compressed.
c i mpeg-3, mpeg-4 or jpeg
ii RLE (run-length encoding)
17 a colour depth – the number of bits used to represent each colour
b image resolution – the number of pixels that make up an image, for example, 4096 × 3192
18 • Standard ASCII code consists of 7-bit codes.
• It represents letters, numbers and characters found on a standard keyboard + 32 control
characters.
• Extended ASCII code uses 8-bit codes, which allows for non-English characters.
• Unicode can be used to represent all languages of the world.
• Unicode overlaps with ASCII code since the first 128 characters are the same, but Unicode
can support several thousand different characters.
• ASCII code uses one byte to represent a character, whereas Unicode will support up to
four bytes per character.
19

Cambridge IGCSE and O Level Computer Science Teacher's Guide 6

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 Cambridge IGCSE and O Level Computer Science Computer Systems Workbook answers

20 a B
b D
c A
d D
e B
21 a It is a form of lossless file compression:
• It reduces the size of a string of adjacent, identical data.
• A repeated string is encoded into two values:
• The first value represents the number of identical data items.
• The second value represents the code of the data item.
• RLE is only effective where there is a long run of repeated units.
b i 3W 2D 5W 4D 3W 1D 1W 2D 1W 1D 1W 16D 1W 1D 1W 2D 1W 1D 3W 4D 5W
2D 3W
ii 8 × 8 grid requires 64 bytes of storage
46 bytes are used in the RLE code
reduction = 64 − 46 = 18 bytes
22 a i the number of bits used to represent sound amplitude
ii the number of sound samples taken per second
b i 4 bits (15 = 1111)
ii 10 Hz (i.e. 10 samples per second)
iii point 9: (14) = 1 1 1 0
point 18: (11) = 1 0 1 1
c Benefits:
• larger dynamic range
• better/more faithful sound quality
• less sound distortion
Drawbacks:
• produces larger files
• takes longer to transmit/download music files
• requires greater processing power

Cambridge IGCSE and O Level Computer Science Teacher's Guide 7

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 Cambridge IGCSE and O Level Computer Science Computer Systems Workbook answers

23 For example:

986 → 3 D A
• Keep dividing by 16 until the value 0 is reached.
• Keep track of remainders following each division.
• The hexadecimal number is obtained from the reminders reading from bottom to top.
• It is necessary to convert remainders that are greater than 9 into the hex characters A, B, C,
D, E or F.
24 a binary digit
b • (computer) circuits are made up of switches/transistors …
• … which can be ON (1) or OFF (0)
c • hex is a more human-friendly representation of binary values …
• … since it uses only 2 digits to represent an 8-bit binary number (greater
information density)
• it is easy to interconvert between hex and binary …
• … which makes it easier when writing software or diagnosing errors in software

2 Data transmission
1 a A data packet is when message/data is split up into smaller groups of bytes:
• for transmission over a network
• containing a header, payload and a trailer
b In any order:
• IP address of the sender
• IP address of the recipient
• the sequence number of the data packet
• the size of the packet (in bytes)
c • The payload contains the actual data being sent in the packet.
• The trailer is a way of identifying the end of a packet and it also contains an error-
checking method, such as a cyclic redundancy check (CRC).

Cambridge IGCSE and O Level Computer Science Teacher's Guide 8

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