Unit 4: A4 Machine learning

Topic 4.1: Machine learning fundamentals Questions

Practice 20 exam-style questions for IB Computer Science Topic 4.1. Review the question stems below, then unlock the full Question Bank to access markschemes, model answers, and AI grading.

1Outline3 marks
2026
Outline how supervised learning works.
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2Outline3 marks
2026
Outline how unsupervised learning works.
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3Identify2 marks
2026
Identify which type of machine learning suits teaching a program to play a board game well, and justify your answer.
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4Outline2 marks
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Outline what is meant by training data.
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5Explain4 marks
2026
Explain why a model's accuracy figure can be misleading.
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6Suggest4 marks
2026
Suggest two ways the environmental cost of training could be reduced.
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7Define1 mark
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Define the term machine learning.
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8Outline3 marks
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Outline how reinforcement learning works.
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9Identify2 marks
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Identify which type of machine learning suits sorting customers into groups with similar buying habits, and justify your answer.
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10Identify2 marks
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Identify which type of machine learning suits deciding whether an email is spam, and justify your answer.
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11Explain3 marks
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Explain why training and test data must be kept separate.
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12Outline2 marks
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Outline what is meant by overfitting.
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13Explain4 marks
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Explain two ways overfitting can be reduced.
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14Determine3 marks
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Determine the accuracy of a model that correctly classifies 456 of 600 test images, and suggest one further figure that should be reported.
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15Suggest4 marks
2026
Suggest why access to machine learning hardware raises questions of fairness.
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16Determine3 marks
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Determine what proportion of a 20 000-example dataset should typically be held back for testing, and explain the trade-off.
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17Explain3 marks
2026
Explain why a machine learning model may be described as a black box.
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18Suggest4 marks
2026
Suggest why a hospital might prefer a simpler, slightly less accurate model.
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19Suggest4 marks
2026
Suggest why a model that performed well in testing may perform poorly once deployed.
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20State2 marks
2026
State the three broad types of machine learning.
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