Computing
What is Computing?
Computing is the science of computation. Candidates following this course do not need to have prior knowledge of Computing or ICT. This specification allows candidates to demonstrate their knowledge of the fundamental principles of Computing. There is a focus on programming and problem solving including communication and networking.
AS Specification AQA GCE Computing (2510)
The AS examinations are comprised of one on-screen exam and one written paper, of 2 hours, 1 hour and count towards 30%, 20% respectively, of the A-level. The AS exams will have, short answer questions and write a program.
Unit 1: Problem Solving, Programming, Data Representation and Practical Exercise:
The topics studied include: Stages of problem solving, Drawing and interpreting simple state transition diagrams and transition tables, Introducing the term algorithm, expressing the solution to a simple problem as an algorithm, Programming in a high level programming language and the fundamentals of structured programming, The binary number system, number bases and information coding schemes, The stages of development of a hardware/software system. The essence of this unit is understanding how software is made and how it works, this means learning programming usually in Visual Basic.
Unit 2: The Computer Components, The Stored Program Concept and The Internet:
It covers the theoretical concepts of computing and includes the study of: Logic gates and Boolean algebra, the internal components of a computer, Hardware devices, the fundamentals of computer systems, the structure of the internet, networking protocols and the consequences of uses of computing.
A2 Specification AQA GCE Computing (2510)
Unit 3: Problem Solving, Programming, Operating Systems, Databases and Networking:
This unit is a synoptic unit and focuses on all of the AS topics, as well as on some more advanced topics which are taught in the A2 year. The more advance topics include: Problem solving and algorithmic complexity, Algorithms and data structures for problem solving, Programming paradigms and object oriented programming techniques, the role of an operating system, and Database design.
Unit 4: The Practical Project:
The final unit is coursework based and normally revolves around a database system. Students are required to program a system that is of a substantially complex nature. Approximately half of the unit revolves around making the system, while documenting the system makes up the remainder of the unit. The measure of success is whether the system is of a professional standard and worthy of selling!
Reading List
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Author(s) |
Title |
Publisher |
ISBN |
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Kevin Bond Sylvia Langfield |
AQA Computing AS |
Nelson Thornes |
978-0-7487-8298-7 |
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Kevin Bond Sylvia Langfield |
AQA Computing A2 |
Nelson Thornes |
978-0-7487-8296-3 |