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OBEROI INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL

IB DIPLOMA MOCK EXAMINATIONS

February - 2020

Subject: Computer science

Level: Standard level
Paper: 2

Date: Thursday Feb 20th

Duration: 1 hour

Candidate session number

Instructions to candidates

● Do not open this examination paper until instructed to do so.

● The maximum mark for this paper is ​[45]

Total Number of printed pages: 5

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1. (a) Outline the difference between an information system and a database. [3]

A bank maintains a database that stores details of clients and their accounts. A client wants to
transfer money between two accounts held at the same bank.

(b)Explain how the ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability) properties

would apply in the context of this database transaction. [8]

2. Jackson City University has a Music Department that provides music lessons to students in a
number of high schools in the city. The Jackson City University Music Department teachers visit the
different schools in the city to teach students a range of musical instruments. The following diagram
shows an unnormalized table of student data.

(a) Explain one benefit of normalizing a database. [3]

(b) Identify three ways that incorrect data could be prevented from being added into the
School_phone_no field. [3]

(c) Outline what would be necessary to make the above unnormalized table conform to 1st Normal
Form (1NF). [2]

(d) Construct the 3rd Normal Form (3NF) of the unnormalized relation shown above. [8]

(e) Explain the difference between 2nd Normal Form (2NF) and 3rd Normal Form (3NF). [3]
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A school maintains a database of students’ details and teaching resources on a central server. This
data can be accessed by all teachers in the school. Teachers may need to edit resources when
preparing their lessons.

2. (a) Explain how concurrent use of the school database is possible in this situation. [3]

When storing student details, data security is an important consideration.

(b) Describe two ways that data security in the school's database can be maintained. [4]

The school has appointed a database administrator (DBA).

A DBA is required to carry out tasks such as ensuring there is a strategy to recover the database if it
becomes corrupted and that the data is shared ethically.

(c) Describe one strategy that could be used to ensure the data can be recovered if the database
becomes corrupted. [2]

[d] Identify two other tasks the DBA has to perform? [2]

3. Marble Reading Book Stores (MRBS) is a chain of bookstores based in London. The stores want to
keep information about the books they sell, the authors of the books and the publishers they work
with. The assumptions made when the database was created were:

• a publisher can publish books from one or more authors

• an author can write one or more books.

3. (a) Construct the entity-relationship diagram (ERD) for this scenario. [3]
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(b) Outline why data validation is difficult for the Book_Title attribute. [2]

(c) State the result from the following query:

SELECT Book_Title FROM BOOK WHERE Genre = "Non-fiction" [2]

AND ISBN = '0-98124-612-2'