Programming Concepts

Programming · 4 question types

Practise

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Exam Frequency Analysis

Past paper frequency (2018 to 2024)

This topic accounts for approximately 13% of your exam marks.

stable

High

Stable13%

Paper 2 is almost entirely programming. Variable types, assignments, loops and conditionals are tested every session.

Comparison operators compare two values and return a (TRUE or FALSE). They are the building blocks of IF statements and loop conditions.

Operator	Meaning	Example	Result
`=`	Equal to	`Age = 18`	`TRUE` if age is 18
`<>`	Not equal to	`Score <> 0`	`TRUE` if score is not zero
`<`	Less than	`Speed < 30`	`TRUE` if speed under 30
`>`	Greater than	`Temperature > 25`	`TRUE` if temperature over 25
`<=`	Less than or equal to	`Mark <= 40`	`TRUE` if mark is 40 or below
`>=`	Greater than or equal to	`Age >= 18`	`TRUE` if age is at least 18

Common slip: in some real programming languages (Python, Java), the test for equality is ==, not =. In CIE pseudocode the single = is correct. Using == in a pseudocode answer often costs marks.