Mr.

Ayman Al-Nahhas +965 97956633

Cambridge ICT Tutor

IGCSE
ICT 0417
Quick Revision
Tips & Tricks
Practice
Paper 2 & 3
By : Mr. Ayman Al-Nahhas
Cambridge ICT Private Tutor
www.etoptutor.com
|Page1
Mr. Ayman Al-Nahhas +965 97956633
Cambridge ICT Tutor

|Page2
Mr. Ayman Al-Nahhas +965 97956633
Cambridge ICT Tutor

File management
 Generic file type: allow you to save files to open on any platform

• Comma separated values .csv file extension : takes data in

the form of tables and saves it in text format, separating data items with
commas
• Text: .txt file extension: not formatted and opened in any word
processor.
• Rich text format: .rtf file extension / saves some of the formatting
within the text.
• Graphics interchange format: .gif file extension: Stores still
or moving / a smaller file size / widely used in web pages.
• Joint photographic expert group: .jpg or .jpeg file extension.
Stores still images only, not moving images. It is an efficient method of
storing images using a smaller file size / widely used in web pages.
• portable document format: .pdf file extension. Document
converted into an image format. Documents seen as an image / read on
most computers. / contain clickable links and buttons, form fields, video
and audio. can protect a document / pdf format stop others from editing
it.

• Portable network graphics: .png file extension. Compresses

graphics (image) files without any loss of image quality / created to
replace graphics interchange format / the most-used lossless
compression format / used for images on the internet.

• cascading stylesheet: .css file extension / saved in cascading

stylesheet format / attached to one or more web pages to define the
pages’ color scheme, fonts and so on.

|Page3
Mr. Ayman Al-Nahhas +965 97956633
Cambridge ICT Tutor

• hypertext markup language: ( .htm or .html) file extension /

text-based language is used to create markup / web browser able to
display information as a web page.

• Roshal archive: .rar file extension. container that can hold almost
any file types in a compressed format / used to reduce the number of
bytes needed to save a file, to save storage space / to reduce
transmission time / when sent from one device to another.

• zip: .zip file extension / container that can hold almost any file types in
a compressed format / It is used to reduce the number of bytes needed
to save a file, either to save storage space / to reduce transmission time
/ when sent from one device to another.

• Reduce file size for transmission: why we reduce file size?

Computer systems have a limited storage capacity / The speed of
transmission between one device and another also depends on the size.
Also on the internet / between computers and devices / printers /network
servers, . This is important when sending files as email attachments. The
larger the file size, the more time it takes to transmit

• Resize the image physically : run Photoshop package or GIMP

software ( free) , ( click image menu / image size / change width and
height value / maintain aspect ratio ( constrain proportions )

• Reduce file size : images with lower-resolution graphics, are often

used for web pages to speed up the loading time of the page, can be very
small / The higher the image resolution, the larger the file / while
saving image file as JPG reduce the quality value to reduce file size

• File compression: To reduce the file size for transmission turn the
file into PDF using the FILE tab, Export. Select the create PDF/XPS / To
send multiple files, compress the files ( open windows explorer - select
the files – left mouse click – Send to - Compressed (zipped) folder

 Reduce file size : using Photoshop package - by reducing image size or

change image mode from 16 bits/ channel to 8 bits/channel or reduce quality

|Page4
Mr. Ayman Al-Nahhas +965 97956633
Cambridge ICT Tutor

|Page5
Mr. Ayman Al-Nahhas +965 97956633
Cambridge ICT Tutor

Word Document
 How to start word document in past paper / pre-start:
 Save the document file in doc format not RTF format using your name,
candidate number and center number
 Change document direction to left align
 Make sure whole text not Bold or italic or underline , use CTRL + A to
highlight
 Change spacing ( before & after ) to zero and line spacing to single
 Check consistency between paragraphs.. no spacing between paragraph
 Use double click to select one word or triple click to select a paragraph
 Make sure you add your name, candidate number, center number in file
name or header and footer or any paper need to print
 To highlight whole document press CTRL + A

 Shortcut using keyboard:

 CTRL + A | Select whole documents
 CTRL + S | save file
 CTRL + P | Print
 CTRL + F | Find anything in the document
 CTRL + B | to make text bold
 CTRL + I | to make text italic
 CTRL + U | to make text underline
 CTRL + Enter | Page break
 F7 | spelling check
 CTRL + < | increase font size
 CTRL + > | decrease font size

Don’t add / format / do anything

not asked to do in exam
|Page6
Mr. Ayman Al-Nahhas +965 97956633
Cambridge ICT Tutor

 Paragraph have two types of spacing ( spacing between paragraphs which is

before and after and spacing between lines ( 1 .. 1.5 , double )

 In Page setup: make sure you select or by default.. apply to ( whole document)

 Always use centimeter instead using inch

 Header & footer : insert page number in the same position , use tab to manage
if you asked to add file path / when you add Date & time uncheck update
automatically

 If you asked to add Date & Time use INSERT tab then click on Data & time icon
Don’t use Quick Parts

 To control text wrapping in the table , select whole table then from table
properties select options , un-tick Automatically resize to fit contents

 If asked to add Quick part ( file name ) sometimes asked to add path to file
name , don’t forget to tick if asked

 4 indentation : before text ( from left ) - after text ( from right ) – First line
indent and hanging line

 Train your self to use Tab order when dealing with long header and footer

 When you add page number make sure you insert Page number in the current
position

 Don’t make widows or orphans , don’t select whole text to make widows or
orphans

 Make sure you print all screen shots

Always read the first line in the exam

before the exam questions
|Page7
Mr. Ayman Al-Nahhas +965 97956633
Cambridge ICT Tutor

Data manipulation
Access
How to start MS-Access in past paper:

 Create folder in the desktop containing your name , center number,

candidate number
 Create database file and save it in this folder
 Examine the tables carefully and understand it very well
 Look at the number of records and type of each field
 Check for the Boolean
 When you asked to create report you have to create query first
 When asked to create a report follow number format ( number of
decimal , date format , currency ) what he asked ( in the begging – top of
the questions
 When you import the text file make sure you select Yes/No for the
Boolean
 When you import the text file make sure you are using Date form as
(DMY) format and computer data format is Regional
 Don’t forget to define the primary key if asked may be mentions as (
Unique or identification number
 Any Bold text will be something to type or open or select
 Any something in Italic in access means Field Name
 Always check the data after you enter for errors
 Assign the following properties for data type:
Data Type Property Data Type
Text Field size Text / Short text Filed from 0 to 255
Numeric Number Numeric Integer : -32,768 to +32,768 no
fractions
Long integer : -2,147,648 to
+2,147,483,647

|Page8
Mr. Ayman Al-Nahhas +965 97956633
Cambridge ICT Tutor

Date/Time DD/MM/YYYY General date Display date & time : 01/01/99

05:01
Long date Display day of the week and date
: Sunday , January 09,2009
Medium Date dd-mmm-yy
Boolean / Yes/No Yes/No/True/False
Logical
Memo Note/ Long text Store up to 1 GB of Memo / Note / long text
characters

Queries Criteria
Criteria Description Example
< Less than <15
> Greater than >15
<= Less than or Equal to <=15
>= Greater than or Equal to >=15
AND Match pattern of characters >7 AND <15
OR Match any condition "ahmed" OR "Sami" - 2002 OR 2003
Between And Match value within the range Between 10 and 20
<> Not Equal to < > "emad"
NOT Not Equal to Not " ayman"
* Subsisting to any character Wildcard, Ahm*
? Subsisting to single character Wildcard, Ahm?dy
Like Match pattern of character Like "Programmer"

How to know report or query:

 Query : may you will see ( Runtime – Find – Extract .. something related
to finding
 Report : may you will see ( column / page – Landscape/portrait – show /
label )
 Ascending and descending in query or report
 Always select only required fields
 Keywords for summery of reports is ( Summery or Count by each or
calculate the sum )
 Use Wizard to create report , query , form
 Always export Query don’t export report

|Page9
Mr. Ayman Al-Nahhas +965 97956633
Cambridge ICT Tutor

Spreadsheet
Excel
 Very important to save spreadsheet file .csv as spreadsheet .xls file extension
 You have to read every question very well at least 3 time and think in excel as
mathematics
 Always search for keywords
 A function is like : sum, Average, Min,IF….
 A Formula : mean might have a function embedded with other formula
,Round,INT
 When you create range make sure your range is correct
 USE INT if the question has something like ( Whole number or Complete
number ) as in
 For printing : print active sheet means entire sheet , print selection means
selected cells
 Alwyes change spreadsheet direction to left from Page Layout tab
 If function : normal is | IF(logical_test, Value_if_true, value_if_false)
1. The logical test is a cell and you should select one from :
2. > greater than
3. < less than
4. >= greater than or equal
5. <= less than or equal
6. = equal to
7. <> not equal

 Functions :
o ROUND function returns a number rounded to a specified number of digits (
Round(number, digits)

| P a g e 10
Mr. Ayman Al-Nahhas +965 97956633
Cambridge ICT Tutor

o INT function returns the integer part of a decimal number by rounding down to
the integer - For example, while INT(10.8) returns 10 – =INT(expression)
o MIN function will return the minimum value in a given list of arguments .. =
MIN(range)
o MAX function will return the largest value in a given list of arguments =
MAX(range)

o AVERAGE function returns the average of the arguments .. =

Average(range)

o SUM function returns the sum of values supplied. These values can be

numbers, cell references, ranges, arrays, and constants, in any combination..

=SUM(range)

o LOOKUP function performs a rough match lookup either in a one-row or

one-column range and returns the corresponding value from another one-row or

one-column range =VLOOKUP(lookup_value,table_array, col_index,

index_number) and alwyes write False or 0 for exact match if the results
are wrong

o Count function counts the number of cells that contain numbers, and counts
numbers within the list of arguments , text not counted

o CountA function, counts cells containing any type of information, including

error values and empty text

o CountIF function count cells that are equal to a value, count cells that are
greater than or equal to a value

o SumIF function adds all numbers in a range of cells based on one criteria
o IF function allows you to make logical comparisons between a value and what
you expect. So an IF statement can have two results. The first result is if your
comparison is True, the second if your comparison is False.

| P a g e 11
Mr. Ayman Al-Nahhas +965 97956633
Cambridge ICT Tutor

Web authoring
FrontPage
Web development layers:
Web pages is created using 3 layers:
1. The content layer (structure layer): include tables / HTML code /
hyperlink/ text / images /multimedia (video, audio).
2. The presentation layer : how the content will appear style to all webpages
3. The behavior layer (scripting language) : include scripting language
What is HTML: Hypertext Markup Language is the standard markup language for documents
designed to be displayed in a web browser

What is CSS : CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets , describes how HTML
elements are to be displayed on screen, paper, or in other media / saves a lot of
work / control the layout of multiple web pages all at once / External stylesheets
are stored in CSS files.

HTML tags:
Represents the root of an HTML document, is the
<html> </html> container for all other HTML elements (except for
the <!DOCTYPE> tag).

Element is a container for metadata (data about

<head> </head> data) and is placed between the <html> tag and the
<body> tag.

Defines the document's title that is shown in a

<title> </title> browser's title bar or a page's tab. It only contains
text

| P a g e 12
Mr. Ayman Al-Nahhas +965 97956633
Cambridge ICT Tutor

Defines the document's body. The <body> element

contains all the contents of an HTML document, such
<body> </body> as headings, paragraphs, images, hyperlinks, tables,
lists

Text formatting tags:

<b> </b> defines bold text

<i> </i> text in italics

The <h1> to <h6> tags are used to define HTML

<h1> </h1> headings. <h1> defines the most important
heading. <h6> defines the least important heading

Paragraph formatting tags:

<p> </p> to contain a paragraph of text in a document

<br /> to indicate a line break inside a paragraph

Lists tags:

<ol> </ol> used to define an ordered list as numbering 1,2,3,4

<ul> </ul> defines an unordered (bulleted) list 

represents a list item in ordered and unordered

<li> </li> lists/ placed inside either a <ol> tag or a <ul>

| P a g e 13
Mr. Ayman Al-Nahhas +965 97956633
Cambridge ICT Tutor

Tables tags:
Defines an HTML table. An HTML table consists of
<table> </table> one <table> element and one or more <tr>, <th>,
and <td> elements

<tr> </tr> specifies a row in an HTML table /

<td> </td> defines a standard data cell in an HTML table

Table code attributes always used within the table tags:

used the space between the edges of the cell and the content
of the cell
cellpadding = n <table cellpadding="10">

used to control the amount of space between cells of a table

cellspacing = n <table cellspacing="10">

Images:
<img src="url" alt="any text"> | attribute specifies the URL of the image

<img src="img_girl.jpg" alt="Girl in a jacket" width="500" height="600">

There are two ways to specify the URL in the src attribute:
1. Absolute URL - Links to an external image that is hosted on another
website. Example: src="https://www.w3schools.com/images/img_girl.jpg".

| P a g e 14
Mr. Ayman Al-Nahhas +965 97956633
Cambridge ICT Tutor

2. Relative URL - Links to an image that is hosted within the website. Here,
the URL does not include the domain name. If the URL begins without a
slash, it will be relative to the current page. Example: src="img_girl.jpg". If
the URL begins with a slash, it will be relative to the domain. Example:
src="/images/img_girl.jpg".

How to Insert video:

How to Insert audio:

Color codes:
Define
<body style="background-color:#FF0000;"> </body> background
color for the
page
<body >
Define
<p style="color:#FF0000";>Red paragraph text</p > paragraph
color
</body >

| P a g e 15
Mr. Ayman Al-Nahhas +965 97956633
Cambridge ICT Tutor

Hyperlink:
To send an email message:

Hyperlinks from images:

<a href="remora.htm"> <img src="REMORA. JPG" alt="Remora"> </a>

How to open a page in new browser window:

• _blank to open the link in new window
• _self to open the link in same window
• _parent to open the link in the parent frame
• _top to open the link in the full body of the window
• <base target = “_self”> default target window use or _blank as default
opening and it should be between body section under <title> </title>.

| P a g e 16
Mr. Ayman Al-Nahhas +965 97956633
Cambridge ICT Tutor

Cascading stylesheet
CSS format:

Attach external stylesheet:

Font family:

| P a g e 17
Mr. Ayman Al-Nahhas +965 97956633
Cambridge ICT Tutor

Font size:

Align text:
text-align: left or right or center or justify

Enhance text within stylesheet:

• font-weight: bold

| P a g e 18
Mr. Ayman Al-Nahhas +965 97956633
Cambridge ICT Tutor

• font-style: italic
• font-decoration: underline

| P a g e 19
Mr. Ayman Al-Nahhas +965 97956633
Cambridge ICT Tutor

Background color:

Background image:
• To add background image : add element body then use background-
image and background-repeat
• Tiles Background images: Use background-repeat: repeat
• You can use background-repeat: no repeat to be only one image

| P a g e 20
Mr. Ayman Al-Nahhas +965 97956633
Cambridge ICT Tutor

Position Background images:

• Use background-position : right top also you can add
margin-right: 200px

CSS Tables :
You can use selector table like body background

Center align a table in a window (position)

table {margin-left :auto; margin-right: auto}

<table border="2" style="margin-left:auto;
margin-right:auto; width:1200px;">

Table width

table {width: 650px} or table{width: 100%}

| P a g e 21
Mr. Ayman Al-Nahhas +965 97956633
Cambridge ICT Tutor

Table border and gridlines:

Border-collapse: property sets whether table borders should collapse into a
single border or be separated as in standard HTML.

• border-collapse: collapse;
• border-collapse: separate;
Border-style: property sets the style of an element's four borders. This
property can have from one to four values.

• border-style: solid;
• border-style: dotted;
• border-style: double;
• border-style: dashed;
Border-width: thin medium thick 10px
 border-width: thin;
 border-width: thick;
 border-width: medium;
 border-width: 10px;

| P a g e 22
Mr. Ayman Al-Nahhas +965 97956633
Cambridge ICT Tutor

Stylesheet for table, td, body :

Table  border-collapse: collapse (all gridlines collapse)

 border-collapse: separate (all gridlines separate)
 border-style: solid (border visible )
 border-style: none ( border not visible )
 border– width : 4px (table border width 4px)
 border-spacing: 10px ( cell spacing )
 margin-left :auto; margin-right: center align a table in
a window or browse (position)
 background-color : #000000 if say background for the
table as example black
 external borders, for table

td padding: 0px if no cell padding ( padding only for td)

internal borders, for td
All Which mean internal and external
borders
Table left margin-left = 0
align margin-right = auto
Table margin-right = 0
right align margin-left = auto
body background-image: url ("2031-bg.png") if say something like
this "The background image 2031-bg.png"
background-repeat : repeat or no repeat
to repeat to fill the browser window
background-color: #ff0000 to set color for the page

| P a g e 23
Mr. Ayman Al-Nahhas +965 97956633
Cambridge ICT Tutor

add comment :
/* add comment here */

Use classes within CSS :

• Class selector selects elements with a specific class attribute. To
select elements with a specific class, write a period (.) character,
followed by the name of the class. You can also specify that only
specific HTML elements should be affected by a class.

Difference between style and class:

 A class definition name starts with a full stop

 A class is used for adding or changing a style within CSS
 Classes are subtypes within an element
 There are a limited number of styles
 Styles are pre-defined classes are user-defined
 Styles are defined in the head section
 Styles are used once but classes are styles saved for future use

What you need to publish the web site by using FTP

• Install FTP client server software like Filezilla
• All files should be in one folder
• Login details for Web Hosting Server include FTP host name and its
details ( port used , username, password )
| P a g e 24
Mr. Ayman Al-Nahhas +965 97956633
Cambridge ICT Tutor

• Once you logged to FTP host server drag the files from your folder
into your webhosting
• Once you upload all files it should appear when using browser and
type domain name

Test website:
• Before testing you should know the purpose from the website
and target audience
• Testing plan will make sure you don’t miss anything , Testing
consists of two phases
1. Functional testing
2. User testing

Web authoring Notes:

 All files including images, video,… should be in one folder what you
asked to create in the exam paper
 When you open Front page and create a page make sure you saved
the page as HTML format
 Page properties : Page title / page description / background color or
image
 Table properties : width / cell padding / cell spacing / borders
 Cell properties : to adjust all columns , horizontal & vertical alignment

Web page printing:

 Asking to print website after you finish , print from browser
 HTML tag page , add your name, center number, candidate name
 CSS code
 Screen shots

| P a g e 25