Programming Exam Practice

This lesson provides comprehensive exam practice for the Programming Fundamentals topic, covering the key content from OCR J277 Section 2.3 that appears on Paper 2: Computational Thinking, Algorithms and Programming. This lesson brings together all programming concepts: variables, data types, operators, selection, iteration, arrays, strings, subroutines, and file handling.

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What to Expect on Paper 2

Paper 2 is worth 80 marks and lasts 1 hour 30 minutes. Programming fundamentals typically accounts for 25–35 marks. Questions will use OCR pseudocode and/or Python.

Question Type	Typical Marks	What You Need to Do
Identify data type	1 mark	Name the data type of a given value
Explain a keyword	1–2 marks	Define a programming term
Read and interpret code	2–4 marks	State the output of given code
Complete/fix code	3–5 marks	Fill in blanks or correct errors
Write a program	4–8 marks	Write a complete solution from a description
Explain benefits	2–3 marks	Justify a programming choice

OCR Exam Tip: You may answer Paper 2 questions using either OCR pseudocode or Python. Be consistent — do not mix them within a single answer. If you are stronger in Python, use Python throughout.

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Practice Question 1: Data Types (2 marks)

Question: State the most appropriate data type for each of the following: (a) The number of students in a class (b) Whether a light switch is on or off

Model Answer: (a) Integer — the number of students is always a whole number. (b) Boolean — there are only two possible states: true (on) or false (off).

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Practice Question 2: DIV and MOD (3 marks)

Question: What are the values of the following expressions? (a) 27 DIV 5 (b) 27 MOD 5 (c) 100 MOD 7

Model Answer: (a) 27 DIV 5 = 5 (27 divided by 5 is 5 remainder 2; DIV gives the quotient) (b) 27 MOD 5 = 2 (27 divided by 5 is 5 remainder 2; MOD gives the remainder) (c) 100 MOD 7 = 2 (100 = 7 × 14 + 2; the remainder is 2)

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Practice Question 3: Trace Table (4 marks)

Question: Complete a trace table for the following pseudocode:

x = 10
y = 3
while x > 0
    x = x - y
    y = y + 1
endwhile
print(x)

Model Answer:

Step	x	y	x > 0?
Init	10	3	true
1	7	4	true
2	3	5	true
3	-2	6	false

Output: -2

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Practice Question 4: String Manipulation (4 marks)

Question: What is the output of the following code?

word = "COMPUTING"
x = word.length
y = word.substring(0, 4)
z = word.substring(4, x)
print(y.lower + " " + z)

Model Answer:

• x = 9 (length of "COMPUTING")
• y = "COMP" (characters at indices 0, 1, 2, 3)
• z = "UTING" (characters at indices 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
• y.lower = "comp"
• Output: "comp UTING"

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Practice Question 5: Write a Function (5 marks)

Question: Write a function called isEven that takes an integer as a parameter and returns true if the number is even, or false if it is odd.

OCR Pseudocode: