4248's Notebook

Computer Science topics

**

**

Here is a list of every topic that is covered on the A Level Computer Science. When you click a page you will be able to see the notes I have made for that topic.

Why are so many crossed out?

Well its because I simply, ran out of time. I don’t have time to make notes about every nitty gritty detail of the course. So I have focused on the topics that I think are most important and will be most useful. Some pages are stubs which will be removed or filled out latter.

Was this the ONLY revision I did for my A Level?

No, this isn’t all of them. I look at past papers and mark schemes, I did past paper questions, I used other resources like textbooks and websites. This is just the notes I made based off the specification and the lessons I had at college etc.

Just before an exam (like a day or two) I like to flick trough past papers, just thinking of the answer in my head and seeing how close I was to the mark scheme. If I got it wrong look over it to refresh on the topic etc. This is like training that memory curve and helps me remember the topic and key words better. Just remember, revision isn’t about learning everything, its about learning the key concepts and being able to apply them in the exam. Try and revise everything and you will forget the important stuff. But everyone is different, so do what works for you.

***

Paper 1

1 - Components of a computer

  1. Processor Components
  2. Processor Performance
  3. Types of Processor
  4. Input Devices
  5. Output Devices
  6. ~~Storage Devices~~~

2 - Systems software

  1. Functions of an Operating System
  2. Types of Operating System
  3. The Nature of Applications
  4. Programming Language Translators

3 - Software development

  1. Systems Analysis Methods
  2. Writing and Following Algorithms
  3. Programming Paradigms
  4. Assembly Language

4 - Exchanging data

  1. Compression, Encryption and Hashing
  2. Database Concepts
  3. Relational Databases and Normalisation
  4. Introduction to SQL
  5. Defining and Updating Tables using SQL
  6. Transaction Processing

5 - Networks and web technologies

  1. Structure of the Internet
  2. Internet Communication
  3. Network Security and Threats
  4. HTML and CSS
  5. Webforms and Javascript
  6. Search Engine Indexing
  7. Client Server and Peer-Peer

6 - Data types

  1. Primitive Data Types, Binary and Hex
  2. ASCII and Unicode
  3. Binary Arithmetic
  4. Floating Point Arithmetic
  5. Bitwise Manipulation and Masks

7 - Data Structures

  1. Arrays, Tuples and Records
  2. Queues and data types
  3. Lists and Linked Lists
  4. Stacks
  5. Hash Tables
  6. Graphs
  7. Trees

8 - Boolean algebra

  1. Logic Gates and Truth Tables
  2. Simplifying Boolean Expressions
  3. Karnaugh Maps
  4. Adders and D-type flip flops

9 - Legal, moral, ethical and cultural issues

  1. Computing Related Legislation
  2. Ethical, Moral and Cultural Issues
  3. Privacy and Censorship

***

Paper 2

10 - Computational thinking

  1. Thinking Abstractly
  2. Thinking Ahead
  3. Thinking Procedurally
  4. Thinking Logically, Thinking Concurrently
  5. Problem Recognition
  6. Problem Solving

11 - Programming techniques

  1. Programming Basics
  2. Selection and Programming Constructs
  3. Iteration
  4. Subroutines and Recursion
  5. Use of IDE
  6. Use of object-oriented Techniques

12 - Algorithms

  1. Analysis and Design of Algorithms
  2. Searching Algorithms
  3. Bubble Sort and Insertion Sort
  4. Merge sort and Quick Sort
  5. Graph Traversal Algorithms
  6. Optimisation Algorithms

14 Oct 20243 min read

Graph View

Backlinks