First assessment 2027
Theme A · Concepts of computer science
SL and HL study the shared content. Additional higher level content is marked HL ONLY.
A1 | COMPUTER FUNDAMENTALS
A1.1 COMPUTER HARDWARE AND OPERATION
- A1.1.1 DESCRIBE THE FUNCTIONS AND INTERACTIONS OF THE MAIN CPU COMPONENTS
- A1.1.2 DESCRIBE THE ROLE OF A GPU
- A1.1.3 EXPLAIN THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE CPU AND THE GPU (HL ONLY)
- A1.1.4 EXPLAIN THE PURPOSES OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF PRIMARY MEMORY
- A1.1.5 DESCRIBE THE FETCH, DECODE AND EXECUTE CYCLE
- A1.1.6 DESCRIBE THE PROCESS OF PIPELINING IN MULTI-CORE ARCHITECTURES (HL ONLY)
- A1.1.7 DESCRIBE INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL TYPES OF SECONDARY MEMORY STORAGE
- A1.1.8 DESCRIBE THE CONCEPT OF COMPRESSION
- A1.1.9 DESCRIBE THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF SERVICES IN CLOUD COMPUTING
A1.2 DATA REPRESENTATION AND COMPUTER LOGIC
- A1.2.1 DESCRIBE THE PRINCIPAL METHODS OF REPRESENTING DATA
- A1.2.2 EXPLAIN HOW BINARY IS USED TO STORE DATA
- A1.2.3 DESCRIBE THE PURPOSE AND USE OF LOGIC GATES
- A1.2.4 CONSTRUCT AND ANALYSE TRUTH TABLES
- A1.2.5 CONSTRUCT LOGIC DIAGRAMS
A1.3 OPERATING SYSTEMS AND CONTROL SYSTEMS
- A1.3.1 DESCRIBE THE ROLE OF OPERATING SYSTEMS
- A1.3.2 DESCRIBE THE FUNCTIONS OF AN OPERATING SYSTEM
- A1.3.3 COMPARE DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO SCHEDULING
- A1.3.4 EVALUATE THE USE OF POLLING AND INTERRUPT HANDLING
- A1.3.5 EXPLAIN THE ROLE OF THE OPERATING SYSTEM IN MANAGING MULTITASKING AND RESOURCE ALLOCATION (HL ONLY)
- A1.3.6 DESCRIBE THE USE OF THE CONTROL SYSTEM COMPONENTS (HL ONLY)
- A1.3.7 EXPLAIN THE USE OF CONTROL SYSTEMS IN A RANGE OF REAL-WORLD APPLICATIONS (HL ONLY)
A1.4 TRANSLATION (HL ONLY)
A2 | NETWORKS
A2.1 NETWORK FUNDAMENTALS
- A2.1.1 DESCRIBE THE PURPOSE AND CHARACTERISTICS OF NETWORKS
- A2.1.2 DESCRIBE THE PURPOSE, BENEFITS AND LIMITATIONS OF MODERN DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURES
- A2.1.3 DESCRIBE THE FUNCTION OF NETWORK DEVICES
- A2.1.4 DESCRIBE THE NETWORK PROTOCOLS USED FOR TRANSPORT AND APPLICATION
- A2.1.5 DESCRIBE THE FUNCTION OF THE TCP/IP MODEL (HL ONLY)
A2.2 NETWORK ARCHITECTURE
- A2.2.1 DESCRIBE THE FUNCTIONS AND PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS OF NETWORK TOPOLOGIES
- A2.2.2 DESCRIBE THE FUNCTION OF SERVERS (HL ONLY)
- A2.2.3 COMPARE AND CONTRAST NETWORKING MODELS
- A2.2.4 EXPLAIN THE CONCEPTS AND APPLICATIONS OF NETWORK SEGMENTATION
A2.3 DATA TRANSMISSIONS
- A2.3.1 DESCRIBE DIFFERENT TYPES OF IP ADDRESSING
- A2.3.2 COMPARE TYPES OF MEDIA FOR DATA TRANSMISSION
- A2.3.3 EXPLAIN HOW PACKET SWITCHING IS USED TO SEND DATA ACROSS A NETWORK
- A2.3.4 EXPLAIN HOW STATIC ROUTING AND DYNAMIC ROUTING MOVE DATA ACROSS LOCAL AREA NETWORKS (HL ONLY)
A2.4 NETWORK SECURITY
A3 | DATABASES
A3.1 DATABASE FUNDAMENTALS
A3.2 DATABASE DESIGN
- A3.2.1 DESCRIBE DATABASE SCHEMAS
- A3.2.2 CONSTRUCT ERDS
- A3.2.3 OUTLINE THE DIFFERENT DATA TYPES USED IN RELATIONAL DATABASES
- A3.2.4 CONSTRUCT TABLES FOR RELATIONAL DATABASES
- A3.2.5 EXPLAIN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NORMAL FORMS
- A3.2.6 CONSTRUCT A DATABASE NORMALIZED TO 3NF FOR A RANGE OF REAL-WORLD SCENARIOS
- A3.2.7 EVALUATE THE NEED FOR DENORMALIZING DATABASES
A3.3 DATABASE PROGRAMMING
- A3.3.1 OUTLINE THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN DATA LANGUAGE TYPES WITHIN SQL
- A3.3.2 CONSTRUCT QUERIES BETWEEN TWO TABLES IN SQL
- A3.3.3 EXPLAIN HOW SQL CAN BE USED TO UPDATE DATA IN A DATABASE
- A3.3.4 CONSTRUCT CALCULATIONS WITHIN A DATABASE USING SQL’S AGGREGATE FUNCTIONS (HL ONLY)
- A3.3.5 DESCRIBE DIFFERENT DATABASE VIEWS (HL ONLY)
- A3.3.6 DESCRIBE HOW TRANSACTIONS MAINTAIN DATA INTEGRITY IN A DATABASE (HL ONLY)
A3.4 ALTERNATIVE DATABASES AND DATA WAREHOUSES (HL ONLY)
- A3.4.1 OUTLINE THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF DATABASES AS APPROACHES TO STORING DATA (HL ONLY)
- A3.4.2 EXPLAIN THE PRIMARY OBJECTIVES OF DATA WAREHOUSES IN DATA MANAGEMENT AND BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE (HL ONLY)
- A3.4.3 EXPLAIN THE ROLE OF ONLINE ANALYTICAL PROCESSING (OLAP) AND DATA MINING FOR BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE (HL ONLY)
- A3.4.4 DESCRIBE THE FEATURES OF DISTRIBUTED DATABASES (HL ONLY)
A4 | MACHINE LEARNING
A4.1 MACHINE LEARNING FUNDAMENTALS
- A4.1.1 DESCRIBE THE TYPES OF MACHINE LEARNING AND THEIR APPLICATIONS IN THE REAL WORLD
- A4.1.2 DESCRIBE THE HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS FOR VARIOUS SCENARIOS WHERE MACHINE LEARNING IS DEPLOYED
A4.2 DATA PREPROCESSING (HL ONLY)
- A4.2.1 DESCRIBE THE SIGNIFICANCE OF DATA CLEANING (HL ONLY)
- A4.2.2 DESCRIBE THE ROLE OF FEATURE SELECTION (HL ONLY)
- A4.2.3 DESCRIBE THE IMPORTANCE OF DIMENSIONALITY REDUCTION (HL ONLY)
A4.3 MACHINE LEARNING APPROACHES (HL ONLY)
- A4.3.1 EXPLAIN HOW LINEAR REGRESSION IS USED TO PREDICT CONTINUOUS OUTCOMES (HL ONLY)
- A4.3.2 EXPLAIN HOW CLASSIFICATIONS TECHNIQUES IN SUPERVISED LEARNING ARE USED TO PREDICT DISCRETE CATEGORICAL OUTCOMES (HL ONLY)
- A4.3.3 EXPLAIN THE ROLE OF HYPERPARAMETER TUNING WHEN EVALUATING SUPERVISED LEARNING ALGORITHMS (HL ONLY)
- A4.3.4 DESCRIBE HOW CLUSTERING TECHNIQUES IN UNSUPERVISED LEARNING ARE USED TO GROUP DATA BASED ON SIMILARITIES IN FEATURES (HL ONLY)
- A4.3.5 DESCRIBE HOW LEARNING TECHNIQUES USING THE ASSOCIATION RULE ARE USED TO UNCOVER RELATIONS BETWEEN DIFFERENT ATTRIBUTES IN LARGE DATA SETS (HL ONLY)
- A4.3.6 DESCRIBE HOW AN AGENT LEARNS TO MAKE DECISIONS BY INTERACTING WITH ITS ENVIRONMENT IN REINFORCEMENT LEARNING (HL ONLY)
- A4.3.7 DESCRIBE THE APPLICATION OF GENETIC ALGORITHMS IN VARIOUS REAL-WORLD SITUATIONS (HL ONLY)
- A4.3.8 OUTLINE THE STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION OF ANNS AND HOW MULTI-LAYER NETWORKS ARE USED TO MODEL COMPLEX PATTERNS IN DATA SETS (HL ONLY)
- A4.3.9 DESCRIBE HOW CNNS ARE DESIGNED TO ADAPTIVELY LEARN SPATIAL HIERARCHIES OF FEATURES IN IMAGES (HL ONLY)
- A4.3.10 EXPLAIN THE IMPORTANCE OF MODEL SELECTION AND COMPARISON IN MACHINE LEARNING (HL ONLY)