Exam Practice - OCR J277

Exam Practice Paper

Component 02 Simulator

This is a simulated exam paper focused entirely on algorithms and programming. It tests your ability to read, trace, debug, and write OCR ERL code.

3 Questions in total.
Time limit: 15 minutes.
You will be graded against a simulated mark scheme at the end.

15:00

Q1. Trace (2 marks)

State the final output of the following algorithm:

counter = 0
for i = 1 to 3
    counter = counter + i
next i
print(counter)

Q2. Debug (3 marks)

A student has written code to ask for a password until it matches "admin". Identify the three errors in their code.

01  password = ""
02  while password = "admin"
03      password = input("Password:")
04  endfor
05  print("Done")

Q3. Write Algorithm (6 marks)

A cinema gives a 50% discount to tickets if the user is under 18 OR 65 and over. Full price is £10. Write an algorithm that asks the user for their age, and outputs the final price they must pay.

Exam Finished

Because free-text code answers cannot be perfectly auto-marked, please self-assess your answers against the official mark scheme below.

Mark Scheme

Q1. Trace Answer (2 marks)

Answer: 6

(1 mark for working out it loops 1,2,3. 1 mark for the final correct sum).

Q2. Debug Answer (3 marks)

Error 1: Line 02 uses = (assignment) instead of != (not equal). If it's a WHILE loop, we want to loop while it is NOT correct.

Error 2: Line 04 uses endfor but the loop started with while. It should be endwhile.

Error 3: Optional/Alternative for Line 02. The logic is inverted. It stops immediately instead of looping.

Q3. Algorithm Answer (6 marks)

ageStr = input("Age?")
age = int(ageStr)

if age < 18 OR age >= 65 then
    print("Price: £5")
else
    print("Price: £10")
endif

(2 marks for inputs & casting, 2 marks for correct IF statement with OR, 2 marks for correct logic structure and printing).

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