Computer Science

Course summary

The course has 3 units: 2 exams and 1 programming project 1. Computer Systems (40% of overall grade) 2 hour 30 minute written exam, externally assessed. • Characteristics of contemporary processors, input, output and storage devices. • Software and software development (including use of programming languages). • How data is exchanged between different systems, including databases, networks, encryption and compression. • Data types and Boolean Algebra. • Legal, moral, cultural and ethical issues which can arise form use of computers. 2. Algorithms and Programming (40% of overall grade) 2 hour 30 minute written exam • Understand what is meant by computational thinking. • Understand benefits of applying computational thinking to solving a wide variety of problems. • Understand principles of solving problems by computational methods. • Use algorithms to describe problems. • Analyse a problem by identifying its component parts 3. Programming Project (20% of overall grade) • Create a program written in Python which solves a specific computing problem.