GCE A/L General Information Technology study plan

Define the core ICT building blocks (hardware, software, data, people, procedures, connectivity) and classify ten everyday systems by their components

Convert between binary, octal, decimal and hexadecimal by hand for twenty numbers and verify each with a written check

Perform two's complement representation of signed 8-bit integers and explain why overflow occurs at the boundary values

Encode a short English phrase in ASCII and in UTF-8 and compare the byte counts, stating why Unicode is needed for Sinhala or Tamil text

Compute storage sizes for given image (pixel x colour-depth) and audio (sample rate x bit depth x seconds) scenarios

Trace the fetch-decode-execute cycle for a simple instruction sequence and label the role of PC, IR, MAR, MDR and ALU

Distinguish RAM types (SRAM, DRAM, SDRAM, DDR generations) and rank them by speed, cost per bit and volatility

Compare HDD, SATA SSD and NVMe SSD on latency, throughput, durability and cost, and justify a purchase for two stated use cases

Identify the ports and interfaces (USB versions, HDMI, Thunderbolt, SATA, PCIe) from their specifications and match them to peripherals

Explain how cache levels L1-L3 and locality of reference affect observed performance

Compare batch, multiprogramming, time-sharing, real-time and distributed operating systems by scheduling behaviour and typical use

Describe process states and transitions, and explain context switching, deadlock conditions and one prevention strategy

Differentiate paging from segmentation and compute the physical address for three given logical addresses

Execute ten command-line tasks in a file system (create, list, copy, move, change permissions, search text) and record the exact commands

Classify five software licences (proprietary, freeware, open source, shareware, public domain) against real examples

Map the OSI seven layers and TCP/IP model to each other and state one protocol and one device for each layer

Distinguish hub, switch and router by the layer they operate at and the collision and broadcast domains they create

Calculate network and broadcast addresses and usable host ranges from five given IPv4 addresses with CIDR prefixes

Explain TCP three-way handshake versus UDP connectionless delivery using a concrete application for each

Describe DNS resolution, DHCP lease allocation and NAT translation as step sequences for a single web request

Model a small library or school scenario as entities, attributes and relationships, and draw an ER diagram with correct cardinality

Convert that ER diagram into relations in third normal form and justify each decomposition step

Write ten SQL statements covering SELECT with WHERE, ORDER BY, GROUP BY with aggregates, INNER JOIN and a subquery

Explain primary key, candidate key, foreign key and referential integrity using your own schema as the example

Describe transaction properties (atomicity, consistency, isolation, durability) and demonstrate a rollback scenario

Write pseudocode and a flowchart for three problems: finding the maximum, linear search and bubble sort

Trace a given algorithm line by line and produce the output for three different inputs, including an edge case

Compare linear and binary search and bubble and insertion sort by time complexity and the conditions each requires

Implement one of your algorithms in a real language and test it against five cases including empty and single-element input

Distinguish syntax, runtime and logic errors and identify which type each of eight given bugs represents

Classify five real e-services (e-government, e-banking, e-learning, e-health, e-commerce) by stakeholder, transaction type and benefit delivered

Explain how e-services depend on databases, networks and authentication, citing one failure mode for each dependency

Identify five security threats (phishing, malware, social engineering, denial of service, SQL injection) and match each to a specific countermeasure

Distinguish symmetric and asymmetric encryption and explain how digital signatures and certificates establish trust

Discuss three Sri Lankan or global legal and ethical issues in ICT, including data protection and intellectual property, and state the relevant principle

Sit two full-length timed mock papers under exam conditions and record section-wise scores

Re-derive every formula and conversion rule from memory (number bases, storage size, subnetting, complexity) and correct gaps

Rewrite your twenty most frequent errors as one-line rules and re-test yourself on them

Practise structured-answer technique on five past-style questions, allocating marks and time explicitly