THE BCS PROFESSIONAL EXAMINATION

Certificate

April 2002

EXAMINERS’ REPORT

Technology

General Comments

The general comments made on previous occasions are worth repeating one again;
that is:

Examination technique was poor for a significant number of candidates. It is important

to read the question carefully, understand what the examiners are asking for and then
answer the question given - not the question you would like to have been asked. The
question paper carries 120 marks and there are 120 minutes in which to answer the
questions. That is, one mark per minute; spending 30 minutes on a question that
carries 12 marks is not sensible.

As an example, many candidates gave lengthier answers to part-questions in Section B

worth 6 marks, than they gave for complete questions in Section A worth 30 marks.

For questions that required some amount of computation, for example, binary
arithmetic, there were many instances where an answer was provided without showing
any working - it is important that the examiner can see the method used. There were
also cases where an obviously wrong method was used but the correct answer
mysteriously appeared. Full marks are only gained where a correct method is shown.

Section A - Comments

The answers to all the questions in Section A had a remarkable similarity in terms of
both the mark profile and popularity. Apart from examination technique, there were no
consistent mistakes or omissions.

Question 1

a) The specification of a microprocessor is given by the following: 200 MHz

processor, 64-bit Bus, 256 KByte cache, floating-point accelerator,
superscalar dual-pipeline. Describe each of the specifications (shown in
italics) and, in particular, state the significance of each in relation to the
processing power of the microprocessor.
(20 marks)

b) An Instruction Cycle comprises three stages: fetch, decode and execute.

Explain what happens in each of the stages, with reference to the internal
registers. State any assumptions made.
(10 marks)

Answer Pointers:

(4 marks were awarded for each term in italics)

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The term megahertz is commonly used to express microprocessor clock speed in
cycles per second. 1 MHz is equivalent to 1,000,000 cycles per second. Typically, one
computer process (e.g. memory access, arithmetic) is carried out in a single cycle.

A bus is the data path on the computer’s motherboard that interconnects the
microprocessor with the other devices (e.g. memory, disks, I/O). A 64-bit Bus implies
there are 64 parallel data paths.

Cache memory is random access memory that a microprocessor can access more
quickly than regular RAM. The microprocessor looks first in the cache memory and if
the data is found there (from a previous reading of data), it does not have to access the
main RAM, which takes longer. Cache memory is sometimes described in levels of
closeness and accessibility to the microprocessor. An L1 cache is on the same chip as
the microprocessor. L2 is usually a separate static RAM chip.

Floating Point Accelerator is additional hardware to perform functions on floating-point

numbers such as addition, multiplication, logarithms, exponentials, trigonometric
functions and various kinds of rounding and error detection. A floating-point accelerator
is sometimes referred to as a co-processor to the CPU.

Superscalar describes a microprocessor design that makes it possible for more than
one instruction at a time to be executed during a clock cycle. In a superscalar design,
the processor is able to determine whether an instruction can be carried out
independently of other sequential instructions, then uses multiple execution units to
simultaneously carry out two or more independent instructions at a time.

b) The following uses an ADD instruction with a memory access (ADD memory
contents to the ALU) to illustrate the answer.

Fetch:
MAR <== PC;
MBR <== M[MAR]; PC <== PC+1;
IR <== MBR;
Decode/Execute:
CU <== IR
PC <== Addr[CU]; The address part of the instruction is transferred to the PC
MAR<== PC;
MBR <== M[MAR];
ALU <== ALU+MBR;

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Question 2

a) Explain the differences between a compiler and an interpreter.

(10 marks)

b) Describe the main stages of the compilation process, showing the purpose of
each stage.
(20 marks)

Answer Pointers:

a) A compiler processes statements written in a particular programming language

and turns them into machine language or "code" that the computer's processor uses.

An interpreter turns the source code of a programming language into an intermediate

language and then “interprets” this language. It does not turn it into machine language.
At run time the execution is slower than a compiled program but can offer good
diagnostics for run time errors.

b) Lexical Analysis: Recognise strings in the source programs; e.g. identifiers,

arithmetic operations

Syntactic Analysis: the compiler then parses (or analyses) all of the language
statements syntactically one after the other to check it complies with the language
definition;

Code generation: builds the output code, making sure that statements that refer to other
statements are referred to correctly in the final code. The output of the compilation is
called object code. The object code is machine code that the processor can process or
"execute" one instruction at a time.

Linking/Consolidation: When more than one object module (or library routine) is to be
run, linking/consolidation is carried out to resolve the relative location of instructions and
data which are cross-referenced. This produces the executable program.

Question 3

Some of the problems associated with managing a computer network are related
to the security of data and equipment. Describe the potential security problems
with networking and identify possible solutions to these problems.
(30 marks)

Answer Pointers:

A number of areas could have been described including

Viruses - a piece of program usually disguised as something else that causes some
unexpected and usually undesirable event. A virus is often designed so that it is
automatically spread to other computer users. Viruses can, for example, be transmitted
as attachments to an e-mail, as downloads, or be present on a diskette or CD.

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Hacking - breaking into computer systems usually by experienced programmers or
engineers with sufficient technical knowledge to understand the weak points in a
security system.

Spoofing - to deceive for the purpose of gaining access to someone else's resources
(for example, to fake an Internet address so that one looks like a certain kind of Internet
user).

Smurfing - is the attacking of a network by exploiting Internet Protocol broadcast

addressing; Echo responses are sent to victim address, which can flood the network
making it unusable for real traffic. One way to defeat smurfing is to disable IP broadcast
addressing at each network routers.

also - Spam/Piracy/Counterfeiting

Solutions can include: Good security policies, including acceptable use policy (AUP).
Intrusion detection systems; Firewalls - security systems designed to prevent
unauthorised access to or from a private network.

Question 4

a) In view of current trends in computing technology, discuss changes you

foresee in the way computers will be used in the future. You are not required
to state the obvious, such as faster speeds and more memory.
(15 marks)

b) The Internet has grown to an extent that it is now difficult to control the
activities taking place. Discuss ways you think illegal and unethical activities
can be curbed on the Internet.
(15 marks)

Answer Pointers:

a) This was an open ended question allowing the candidate to demonstrate their
broad understanding and appreciation of computing. One approach to answering the
question was as follows:-

Computing would become all pervasive (Ubiquitous) - a trend towards increasingly

computing devices in the environment, a trend being brought about by a convergence
of electronics, in particular wireless technologies and the Internet. This includes mobile
computing and embedded devices in almost any type of object, including cars, tools,
appliances, and various consumer goods - all communicating through increasingly
interconnected networks. Emerging technologies: mobile computing, wearable
computers; smart homes; speech recognition.

b) As with part a), this section allowed the candidate to express their views and
thoughts. Some areas that could have been mentioned include the following:-

Strong powers to the police to seize and have access to records of cyber crimes like
hacking, pornography, racial incitement;

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Proposals that email and other communications should be able to be intercepted by
appropriate government authorities.

Internet service providers and other carriers to provide a mechanism through which
government agencies could look at suspect communications.

International agreements on the jurisdiction that nation states have for activities that
happen over the Internet.

Section B - Comments

Question 5

a) What is meant by the bandwidth of a bus when referring to computer

systems?
(6 marks)

b) State two ways by which the bandwidth of a bus can be increased.

(6 marks)

This was not a popular question and those that attempted the question generally gained
poor marks. There appeared to be a basic lack of knowledge on the subject.

Answer Pointers:

a) Bandwidth is used to mean how fast data flows on a given transmission path,
expressed in bits per second.

b) Increasing bandwidth: increase bus size; increase clock speed.

Question 6

a) What is the difference between machine language and assembly language?

(6 marks)

b) An instruction comprises an "op-code" and an "operand". Explain the

significance of each.
(6 marks)

Most candidates had a reasonable understanding of the topic and addressed the issues
asked.

Answer Pointers:

a) Machine language is the basic language of computers, consisting of a stream of

1's and 1's. Assembly language reflects the basic instruction set of the processor, in
humanly understandable form. One-to-one correspondence with machine language.

b) Op-code the type of instruction to be carried out; Operand the "data" the
instruction operates with.

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Question 7

a) State what RAM and ROM stand for, and describe the characteristics of each.
What is each used for in a computer system?
(8 marks)

b) What is the purpose of a modem? Briefly explain how it operates.

(4 marks)

A purely factual question and the most popular question on the paper as well as being
the best answered question.

Answer Pointers:

a) RAM (random access memory) is the place in a computer where the OS,
application programs, and data in current use is kept so that they can be quickly
reached by the processor. Volatile. ROM is computer memory containing data that
normally can only be read, not written to. ROM contains the programs that allows a
computer to be "booted up". Non-volatile.

b) A modem modulates outgoing digital signals from a computer (or other digital
devices) to analogue signals that are transmitted along telephone lines and
demodulates the incoming analogue signal and converts it to a digital signal for the
computer (or other digital device).

Question 8

What is meant by a network topology? Describe three typical network topologies

giving one advantage and one disadvantage of each topology.
(12 marks)

As with question 7, a popular question and well answered.

Answer Pointers:

In communication networks, a topology describes the configuration or arrangement of a

network (nodes and connections). Types - Bus, Star, Ring.

Bus: advantages - low cost, easy expansion; disadvantages - low speed, limited size

Star: advantages - easy expansion, easy maintenance; disadvantages - high cost if

switch breaks then the whole network is down

Ring: advantages - fast, low cost; disadvantages - if any node breaks the whole network
is down (unless FDDI).

Question 9

a) Define each of the following number representations: fixed-point, floating-

point, sign-magnitude, two's compliment.
(8 marks)

b) Convert the following base-ten number to hexadecimal: 462

(4 marks)

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This question was surprisingly poorly answered. Part b) was very straightforward but
remarkably few candidates checked their answer by quickly converting their answer
back to a base 10 number.

Answer Pointers:

Fixed point: binary number with a fixed radix point (fractional part); Floating point
number does not have a fixed radix and is stored in three parts: sign (plus or minus),
mantissa which are the digits that are meaningful, and exponent or order of magnitude
of the mantissa, which determines the place to which the radix point floats.

462 to the base 10 is 1CE to base 16.

Question 10

a) Write a Boolean expression for the exclusive-OR (XOR) operation. Show how
it can be implemented with AND, OR and NOT gates.
(6 marks)
Note: The XOR operation is true if either input is true but not both.

b) A three-input digital circuit gives a TRUE output when a majority (i.e. 2 or

more) of the inputs are TRUE. Draw the circuit implementation.
(6 marks)

Two very simple answers were required. Candidates appeared to either know how to
tackle this type of question or did not really know how to approach the topic.

Answer Pointers:

a) AB' + A'B
b) AB + BC +AC

Question 11

Data transfer to and from peripherals may be handled in one of three modes:
Programmed I/O, Interrupt-driven I/O and Direct Memory Access (DMA). Describe
the characteristics of each transfer mode.
(12 marks)

Most candidates knew one or sometimes two approaches but few knew all three.

Answer Pointers:

Programmed I/O - data is exchanged between CPU and I/O; No other activity is
possible during data exchange; CPU has to sense I/O device status.

Interrupt-driven I/O - CPU issues I/O command and continues to execute other
instruction; is interrupted by I/O device when it is ready.

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DMA - I/O and main memory exchange data without CPU involvement. Extra hardware
(DMA controller) is required.

Question 12

a) Define what is meant by a page, a frame and a page-fault in the operation of

virtual memory.
(6 marks)

b) A virtual memory system has an address space of 256K words, a memory

space of 16K words and a frame size of 4K words. How many pages and
frames are there?
(6 marks)

The least popular question on the paper by a long way and the weakest answered
question. Candidates clearly had little knowledge of virtual memory.

Answer Pointers:

a) Page - a partition (proportion) of secondary memory that is transferred to main

memory as a block; Frame - a partition of RAM into which pages are loaded; Page fault
- reference to a memory address that is not contained in RAM

b) No of pages -256/4; No of frames 16/4.

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