Question 1, May 2022, 1R, Pearson Edexcel International GCSE (9-1) Information and Communication Technology, Paper-1

Nihal travels for work and holidays.

He uses ICT to plan his travel and for entertainment.

Nihal uses a camera and camcorder when travelling.

(a) State one use of a camcorder. (1)

A camcorder is used to capture moving images.

(b) Which one of these is a wired connectivity type? (1)

A GPS

B USB

C WEP

D Wi-Fi

B USB

(c) Which one of these is a reason why Wi-Fi is a better choice than Bluetooth for transferring files? (1)

A Data cannot be intercepted

B Higher bandwidth

C Higher latency

D Only work with secure files

B Higher bandwidth

(d) Nihal uses a social network to send photographs of his holiday to his friends.

(i) Explain one drawback to Nihal of sharing his photographs online using a social network rather than using email. (2)

Nihal has less control of who can access them because it is easier for people in social network to re-share them and they can be then used for fraudulent activities.

(ii) State who owns copyright to Nihal's photographs. (1)

Nihal owns the copyright to his photographs.

(e) Nihal uses a camera with a 64GiB memory card.

Each photograph uses 2MiB of storage.

(i) Construct an expression to show how many photographs can be stored on the memory card. (2)

1GiB = 1024 MiB

64 GiB = 1024 x 64 MiB

= 65535 MiB

Number of photographs can be stored = 65535/2

= 32768 

(ii) Which one of these is a benefit of using a memory card? (1)

A Easier to connect to a network

B Easier to expand available storage

C Files will be named automatically

D Only image data can be stored

B Easier to expand available storage

(iii) State the type of memory used to store the camera's start-up instructions. (1)

Read Only Memory (ROM) is used to store the camera's start-up instructions.

(iv) State one type of utility software that will reduce the size of each photograph. (1)

Compression will reduce the size of each photograph.

(f) Explain one disadvantage of increasing the speed of the camera's processor. (2)

The hardware of the camera could be damaged because the processor will produce more heat.

(g) Flash memory is non-volatile.

(i) State two other characteristics of flash memory. (2)

1 Flash memory has no moving parts so produce less heat.

2 It has faster access capability.

(ii) Describe how a flash memory device stores data. (2)

To store data in a flash memory device, a voltage is applied to the transistor's gate, which causes electrons to flow through the oxide layer and onto the floating gate, thereby storing a charge. The presence or absence of charge on the floating gate determines the stored data value. if there is no charge on the floating gate, the binary value is ), and if there is a charge, the binary value is 1.

(iii) State why flash memory must be non-volatile. (1)

Flash memory must be non-volatile because it is used to store data even when power is not applied to the device.

(iv) State the type of memory that is volatile. (1)

Random Access Memory (RAM) is a volatile memory.

(h) State one advantage of using a Blu-ray disk rather than a CD. (1)

Blu-ray disk can store more data rather than a CD.

(i) A camera is an example of a product that uses an embedded system.

Give one use of an embedded system in a camera. (1)

An embedded system in a camera can process the image. 

(Total for Question 1 = 21 marks)