OCR A-level Computer Science Paper 2 (H446/02) - 19th June 2023 [Exam Chat]

Yea that's what I am scared of! Like if its OOP, a little bit of programming and some stuff about IDE's and big O etc, I'm fine. But if we have to fully program a quicksort or merge sort I'm screwed. Like I do feel like this paper is going to be really difficult.

you don't have to be able to code the merge or quick sort. only the bubble and insertion sort, I'm pretty sure.

nahh we aren’t going to be asked to program a sorting algorithm, its always going to be a filling out one and also they ask us to rewrite the code from a for loop to a while loop or vice versa. the proper coding questions will be like max 8 marks where they ask us to write something in pseudocode which is most likely an iteration so for or while loop

From what I can remember, there has been two questions where you have had to program a sorting alg from scratch. (Maybe one)

I’m kind of terrified for this paper considering how GCSE students found paper 2 compared to their paper 1. I genuinely have no idea what to expect. I’m just hoping they don’t focus too much on data structures because linked lists, stacks and queues made up so much of paper 1.

I’m thinking types of processing could come up, since from what I can remember they’ve never had a 9 or 12 marker on comparing them but please correct me if i’m wrong. Procedural and OOP are guaranteed but not sure to what extent (there was a 9 marker where you had to compare them last year I think, so will likely only focus on one if it is a question). Dijkstras, A*, and IDEs are pretty much a given. I’m expecting an ‘explain how [sorting algorithm] would order the data’, or something to do with the big O notation of them. Searching algorithms, I’ve got no idea. I’m hoping it’s a gap-fill at most but they could ask anything based on how that GCSE paper went.

What do you mean by ‘types of processing’? However remember if it’s really hard, the grade boundaries will be lower right? However who knows, hope the 9 / 12 markers are easy.

sorry, meant thinking*. concurrently, logically, procedurally etc

You have to know how to program both according to the spec for the alevel, you don't if your doing the AS.

surely it would be very unlikely though cause they’re both so long😟

i found this video for ocr a level computer science, it has predictions but can someone check if they are likely or legit please

www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQR36b3FWAA

i’m so glad not everyone is finding this super easy - on reddit everyone is saying that ocr comp sci is a free alevel 😭 it makes me feel better that i’m not the only lowkey struggling

tbf it's not as bad as physics from what I have heard. I get everything, however just think its a little hard to get full marks on the long answer questions and the sorting and search alg code can be kind of confusing to remember and write down. Also I think it is fairly easy to make little mistakes that can loose you marks.

Check out https://www.physicsandmathstutor.com/ if you are struggling on a certain part, I have used this and craig and Dave videos and its been fairly okay to grasp.

However defo think that this will be one of the hardest P2 so far out of all the OCR CS paper 2s.

I'm thinking IDEs or something about global/local variables but those have come up quite a bit. IDEs and caching almost always come up, data mining has also come up a few times so it's likely they'll put it in. It's hard to predict without seeing the 2022 paper. Heuristics and the A* algorithm has only come up once or twice I believe so that's worth doing a couple big markers on.

2022 programming paper had a lot of Breadth first and depth first, a whole 9 marker on it plus 7 other marks in seperate parts. There was 9 marker on comparing the use of bubble merge and insertion too where u had to talk about big o n stuff. There was typical dijkstra too ofc and there was a 9 marker on OOP and a decent amount of qs on stacks. Went over it in class a lot so know all this.