1. GCSE Computer Science
Information

2. Board: AQA GCSE Computer Science Paper One: Computational thinking 40%
Paper One: Written Assessment 40%
Non-examined assessment %
100%
Grades 1 – 9 (9 highest)

3. Paper One: Computational thinking
Computational Thinking and problem solving
How it’s assessed?
Written exam set in practically based scenarios(1 hour, 30minutes)
80 marks
40% of the GCSE qualification
Questions
A mix of multiple choice, short answer and long answer questions, assessing a pupils problem solving and computational thinking.

4. Example Question One
Paper One:
Figure two contains a subroutine that contains a value.
Complete the trace table above when the subroutine call TotalOut(3, 4) is made.

5. (A.B).B Example Question Two Paper One:
Complete the truth table for the logic circuit represented by the following equation below.
(A.B).B

6. Paper Two: Written Assessment
General Computational theory
How it’s assessed?
Written examination (1 hour, 30 minutes)
80 marks
40% of the GCSE qualification
Questions
A mix of multiple choice, short answer, longer answer and extended response questions assessing a student’s theoretical knowledge

7. Example Question One
Paper Two:
Figure Four contains of a black and white image consisting of 36 pixels
Explain why 36 pixels are required to represent the image shown in Figure Four

8. Example Question Two Paper Two:
When data is stored in a computer it is often compressed. One method that can be used to compress text data is Huffman coding. To produce a Huffman code each character in a piece of text is placed in a tree, with its position in the tree determined by how often the character was used in the piece of text.
Using this Huffman tree the Huffman coding for the character E would be the bit pattern 110 because from the top of the tree E is to the right, then right again and then left.
The character Z is represented by the bit pattern 010 because from the top of the tree Z is to the left, then right and then left.

9. Example Question Two Paper Two:
Using the Huffman code in Figure 3, complete the table to show the Huffman coding for the characters O, SPACE and B..
Huffman code

10. Non Examined Assessment
What is assessed?
The non-exam assessment (NEA) assesses a student's ability to use the knowledge and skills gained through the course to solve a practical programming problem.
How it’s assessed?
Report: totalling 20 hours of work
80 marks
20% of the GCSE qualification
Report
The development of a computer program along with the computer programming code itself which has been designed, written and tested by a student to solve a problem.  
Students will produce an original report outlining this development.

11. How is the work documented? Non Examined Assessment
Solution design
Sufficient support to enable a student to develop a minimal solution that allows the student to develop a program.
Creating the solution
Provide explanations of programming code syntax in general terms, however, this cannot be related to the work in progress.
Testing the solution
Provide general indications of aspects of the program that need to be tested so that students are not prevented from carrying out some testing. You must not tell students to use normal, erroneous and boundary data for their tests.
Potential enhancements and refinements
No support is allowed.
Overall quality of report

12. Non Examined Assessment
Programming languages
• C#
• Java
• Pascal/Delphi
• Python
• VB.Net.
Sample problem