Unit 5: B1 Computational thinking
Topic 5.1: Thinking computationally about a problem Questions
Practice 20 exam-style questions for IB Computer Science Topic 5.1. Review the question stems below, then unlock the full Question Bank to access markschemes, model answers, and AI grading.
1Choose1 mark
2026
Choose the best example of abstraction.
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Unlock Question2Outline3 marks
2026
Outline what a problem specification should contain.
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Unlock Question3Construct3 marks
2026
Construct a flowchart, described in steps, that inputs a number and outputs whether it is positive, negative or zero.
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Unlock Question4Construct4 marks
2026
Construct, as steps, a flowchart that reads 10 numbers and outputs their total.
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Unlock Question5Suggest3 marks
2026
A flowchart initialises HIGH to zero before finding the highest of a set of numbers. Suggest why this can give a wrong answer.
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Unlock Question6Determine3 marks
2026
Determine the output of this Java code.
int total = 0;
for (int i = 1; i <= 4; i++) {
total = total + i * i;
}
System.out.println(total);
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Unlock Question7Determine3 marks
2026
Determine what this Python code outputs and what it is doing, where words is a list of strings.
c = 0
for w in words:
if len(w) > 5:
c = c + 1
print(c)
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Unlock Question8Determine3 marks
2026
Determine what this Java code outputs and what it is doing, where words is an array of strings.
int c = 0;
for (String w : words) {
if (w.length() > 5) {
c = c + 1;
}
}
System.out.println(c);
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Unlock Question9Determine3 marks
2026
Determine the output of this Java code.
int x = 5;
int y = 2;
while (x > y) {
x = x - 1;
}
System.out.println(x);
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Unlock Question10Determine3 marks
2026
Determine what is wrong with this Python code.
i = 1
while i < 10:
print(i)
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Unlock Question11Determine3 marks
2026
Determine what is wrong with this Java code.
int i = 1;
while (i < 10) {
System.out.println(i);
}
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Unlock Question12Choose1 mark
2026
Choose the output of this Java code.
int i = 1;
while (i <= 3) {
System.out.println(i);
i = i + 1;
}
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Unlock Question13Determine1 mark
2026
Determine the output of this Python code.
a = 3
b = 7
if a > b:
print(a)
else:
print(b)
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Unlock Question14Determine1 mark
2026
Determine the output of this Java code.
int a = 3;
int b = 7;
if (a > b) {
System.out.println(a);
} else {
System.out.println(b);
}
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Unlock Question15Determine3 marks
2026
A programmer tries to swap the values of a and b in Python like this.
a = 4
b = 9
a = b
b = a
Determine what goes wrong.
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Unlock Question16Determine3 marks
2026
A programmer tries to swap the values of a and b in Java like this.
int a = 4;
int b = 9;
a = b;
b = a;
Determine what goes wrong.
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Unlock Question17Determine3 marks
2026
Determine the final value of total after this Python code runs.
total = 0
for i in range(1, 6):
if i % 2 == 0:
total = total + i
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Unlock Question18Determine3 marks
2026
Determine the final value of total after this Java code runs.
int total = 0;
for (int i = 1; i <= 5; i++) {
if (i % 2 == 0) {
total = total + i;
}
}
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Unlock Question19Determine3 marks
2026
Determine the output of this Python code.
n = 5
f = 1
while n > 0:
f = f * n
n = n - 1
print(f)
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Unlock Question20Determine3 marks
2026
Determine the output of this Java code.
int n = 5;
int f = 1;
while (n > 0) {
f = f * n;
n = n - 1;
}
System.out.println(f);
Markscheme and model answer locked
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