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Northern Ireland · CCEAQ&A
Software Systems DevelopmentQ&A by dot point
A short Q&A bank for every Northern Ireland Software Systems Development syllabus dot point. Each question and answer is drawn directly from our worked dot-point page, so you can scan key concepts before opening the long-form answer.
A2 1 Systems Approaches and Database Concepts
- Development methodologies (waterfall, prototyping, rapid application development and agile), the feasibility study, and fact-finding techniques.4Q&A pairs
- Entity relationship modelling (entities, attributes, relationships and cardinality) and normalisation to first, second and third normal form.4Q&A pairs
- Relational database concepts - tables, records and fields, primary and foreign keys, relationships, referential integrity, and the advantages over flat files.3Q&A pairs
- Structured Query Language - data definition (CREATE TABLE) and data manipulation (SELECT with WHERE, ORDER BY, joins and aggregate functions, plus INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE).3Q&A pairs
- System modelling with data flow diagrams and UML diagrams (use case, class and activity), and the role of the data dictionary.5Q&A pairs
- The stages of the systems development lifecycle - analysis, design, implementation, testing, installation and maintenance - and the purpose of a structured approach.3Q&A pairs
A2 2 Implementing Solutions
AS 1 Introduction to Object Oriented Development
- One-dimensional and two-dimensional arrays - declaration, indexing, traversal with loops, and using parallel arrays to hold related data.5Q&A pairs
- The three control structures - sequence, selection (if and case) and iteration (definite and indefinite loops) - and tracing the flow of execution.6Q&A pairs
- Primitive data types, variables and constants, arithmetic, relational and logical operators, operator precedence, and type conversion (casting).6Q&A pairs
- The four pillars of object orientation - encapsulation with access modifiers, inheritance and class hierarchies, polymorphism through method overriding, and abstraction.3Q&A pairs
- Methods, parameters and arguments, return values, variable scope, and common string-handling operations.6Q&A pairs
- Classes and objects, attributes and methods, instantiation, and how the object oriented paradigm models real-world entities.4Q&A pairs
- Validation techniques, test data categories (normal, boundary and erroneous), test plans, and the types of program error (syntax, run-time and logic).5Q&A pairs
AS 2 Event Driven Programming
- Storing application data in arrays, lists and records, and the standard algorithms - linear search, binary search and a simple sort such as bubble sort.4Q&A pairs
- The event driven paradigm - events, event handlers, the event loop, event-driven versus procedural programming, and the roles of the operating system and the program.4Q&A pairs
- Reading from and writing to text and sequential files - opening, reading, writing, appending and closing files, processing records, and handling file errors.4Q&A pairs
- Forms and common GUI controls, their properties, events and methods, wiring controls to handlers, and the human-computer interaction principles of good interface design.4Q&A pairs
- Testing strategies for applications, debugging tools (breakpoints, stepping, watches), exception handling with try and catch, and producing robust software.4Q&A pairs