Computer Science (9618)

AS and A Level Computer Science notes following the Cambridge International 9618 syllabus, with Cambridge pseudocode throughout.

Margin's Computer Science notes follow the Cambridge International AS & A Level Computer Science syllabus (9618), in two courses: AS Computer Science and A Level Computer Science.

Courses and papers#

Course	Label	Covers	Assessed in
AS Computer Science	AS	Theory fundamentals, problem-solving and programming	Paper 1 (theory fundamentals), Paper 2 (fundamental problem-solving and programming skills)
A Level Computer Science	A2	Advanced theory and practical programming	Paper 3 (advanced theory), Paper 4 (practical)

AS Computer Science#

Information representation, communication, hardware, processor fundamentals, system software, security, privacy and data integrity, ethics and ownership, databases, algorithm design and problem-solving, data types and structures, programming, and software development.

A Level Computer Science#

Data representation, communication and internet technologies, hardware and virtual machines, system software, security, artificial intelligence, computational thinking and problem-solving, and further programming.

Pseudocode and programming languages#

Algorithms in the notes are written in Cambridge pseudocode, following the syllabus's pseudocode guide exactly, and highlighted to match:

DECLARE Numbers : ARRAY[1:10] OF INTEGER

FUNCTION LinearSearch(Target : INTEGER) RETURNS INTEGER
    DECLARE Index : INTEGER
    FOR Index ← 1 TO 10
        IF Numbers[Index] = Target THEN
            RETURN Index
        ENDIF
    NEXT Index
    RETURN -1
ENDFUNCTION

Paper 4 is taken in one of the languages the syllabus allows: Python, Java or Visual Basic .NET. Where it helps, notes also show the same algorithm in Python:

def linear_search(numbers: list[int], target: int) -> int:
    for index in range(len(numbers)):
        if numbers[index] == target:
            return index
    return -1

SQL, assembly language and HTML examples are highlighted too.

What to expect in a note#

Trace tables and step-by-step walkthroughs of algorithms
Comparison tables, such as TCP and UDP, or RISC and CISC
Worked examples of binary, hexadecimal, two's complement and floating-point conversions
Exam tip blocks on writing pseudocode the way mark schemes expect

Courses and papers#

AS Computer Science#

A Level Computer Science#

Pseudocode and programming languages#

What to expect in a note#

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