GCE A/L Information & Communication Technology study plan

Convert numbers fluently among binary, octal, decimal and hexadecimal, and perform two's complement subtraction without a calculator

Apply BCD, ASCII and Unicode encodings to convert short character strings to bit patterns and back

Construct truth tables for 3-input expressions and simplify them using Boolean identities and Karnaugh maps

Derive the truth table of a half adder and full adder, and explain how ripple-carry addition is built from them

Describe the stored program concept and trace one fetch-decode-execute cycle through registers

Classify CPU, memory and I/O components and state the function of ALU, control unit, registers and cache

Compare volatile and non-volatile storage and justify a given storage choice for a stated scenario

Distinguish system software from application software and describe the role of the operating system in process, memory and file management

Draw logic circuits from Boolean expressions and write the Boolean expression for a given gate network

Explain the impact of clock speed, word length, bus width and cache size on system performance

Write pseudocode for sequence, selection and iteration structures and dry-run them with a trace table

Implement linear search, binary search, bubble sort and insertion sort in pseudocode and state the time complexity of each

Compare arrays, linked lists, stacks and queues and select the appropriate structure for a stated problem

Decompose a problem into functions or procedures with defined parameters and return values

Identify and correct logic errors in a supplied algorithm by tracing variable values

Design an entity-relationship model for a stated scenario, identifying entities, attributes, primary and foreign keys and relationship cardinality

Normalise a given relation to third normal form and justify each decomposition step

Write SQL statements for SELECT with WHERE, ORDER BY, GROUP BY and JOIN, plus INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE

Explain the role of a DBMS and distinguish a relational database from a flat file, citing redundancy and integrity

Describe the stages of the software development life cycle and map a small project onto them

Compare circuit switching, packet switching and the OSI and TCP/IP layer models, stating the function of each layer

Describe the operation of Ethernet, Wi-Fi and IP addressing, and classify given addresses as private or public

Explain DNS, HTTP, HTTPS, SMTP and FTP and the port each uses

Distinguish static from dynamic web pages and describe the roles of HTML, CSS, JavaScript and a web server

Describe e-commerce, e-learning and e-government models and the infrastructure each depends on

Produce a feasibility study covering technical, economic, legal and operational feasibility for a stated system

Write functional and non-functional requirements and draw context and level-1 data flow diagrams

Construct decision tables and decision trees for a business rule and convert one into program logic

Describe fact-finding techniques and select the most suitable for a given stakeholder situation

Explain project management activities including work breakdown, Gantt scheduling, critical path and risk management

Trace the evolution of computing from mainframe to cloud era and link each stage to a societal change

Explain threats including malware, phishing, denial of service, SQL injection and social engineering with a countermeasure for each

Describe symmetric and asymmetric encryption, digital signatures and certificates, and where each is applied

Summarise the legal and ethical duties of a data controller, including consent, purpose limitation and data subject rights

Analyse a case study on digital divide, automation and employment, or intellectual property and present a balanced argument

Define cloud service and deployment models and justify the correct model for three stated scenarios

Describe how IoT devices, sensors and edge processing combine into a working system and name two security risks

Distinguish supervised from unsupervised machine learning and state what training data and inference mean

Explain the characteristics of big data and how distributed processing addresses volume and velocity

Complete two full timed past papers under exam conditions and mark them against the scheme