2020.
M110CS 2020L219ACES
Coimisiún na Scrúduithe Stáit
State Examinations Commission
Leaving Certificate Examination
Sample Paper
Computer Science
Section C
Higher Level
Time: 1 hour
80 marks
Examination number
Centre stamp
previous page running
Junior Cycle Final Examination 2019
Instructions
There is one section of the examination paper in this booklet.
Section C Programming 80 marks 1 question
Answer all parts of the question on your digital device.
Instructions are provided for each question.
Ensure that you save your work regularly and when you complete each question.
Do not change the file names or save your work under different file names.
If you are unable to get some code to work correctly you can comment out the code so that you
can proceed. The code that has been commented out will be reviewed by the examiner.
Leaving Certificate – Sample Paper 2
Computer Science, Section C – Higher level
Section C Programming 80 marks
Answer all question parts.
Question 16
According to a recent report in the Irish Independent (19 August 2019) one in four children and
three out of four adults in Ireland are overweight or obese. This causes significant increases in
illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease. To determine whether a person is overweight or
obese, a measure called the Body Mass index (BMI) can be used.
BMI is defined as body weight (in kilograms) divided by the square of the body height (in metres).
If height is given instead in centimetres, then the formula for calculating BMI is:
ℎ
= × 10000
ℎ ℎ
(a) Open the program called Question16_A.py from your device.
Enter your Examination Number in the space provided on Line 2.
1 # Question 16(a)
2 # Examination Number:
3
4 weight = int(input("Enter weight (in kilograms): "))
5 height = 180 # centimetres
6
7 bmi = weight / (height * height) * 10000
8
9 print("BMI is: ", bmi)
10
This program is designed to calculate and display the BMI for a person whose weight is
entered by the end‐user and whose height is 180 cm.
A sample run of the program is displayed below – the user enters a value of 90 (kilograms)
for weight and the program displays the resulting BMI.
Enter weight (in kilograms): 90
BMI is: 27.777777777777778
Leaving Certificate – Sample Paper 3
Computer Science, Section C – Higher level
Modify the program to do the following:
(i) Insert a comment to say ‘read weight’ in the appropriate location in the program to
show where the weight is input.
(ii) Currently in the program the value of the variable height is hard‐coded to 180.
Modify the program so that it prompts the user to enter a value for height. The
value should be converted to an integer.
When the program is run the output may look as follows:
Enter weight (in kilograms): 90
Enter height (in centimetres): 180
BMI is: 27.77777777777778
(iii) By using the function round, or otherwise, modify the program so that the value of
the BMI displayed is rounded to one decimal place.
When the program is run the output may look as follows:
Enter weight (in kilograms): 90
Enter height (in centimetres): 180
BMI is: 27.8
(iv) By using the function pow, or otherwise, replace the expression (height *
height) with an alternative, but equivalent, implementation.
(v) Incorporate the following function definition into your program and insert a line so
that the function is called before the user enters any data.
def display_intro():
print("Welcome to my BMI calculator!")
When the program is run the output may look as follows:
Welcome to my BMI calculator!
Enter weight (in kilograms): 90
Enter height (in centimetres): 180
BMI is: 27.8
Leaving Certificate – Sample Paper 4
Computer Science, Section C – Higher level
(vi) A BMI number alone might not mean much to the average person. A more meaningful
output might be one of the four BMI categories: underweight, normal weight,
overweight or obese.
Extend the program so that it displays the BMI category according to the BMI ranges in
the table below.
BMI Category BMI Range
Underweight less than 18.5
Normal from 18.5 to 24.9
Overweight from 25 to 29.9
Obese greater than or equal to 30
The table below shows the expected BMI values and categories for some sample
weight and height values. You could use this data to test your program.
weight ( ) height ( ) bmi ( / ) BMI Category
50 165 18.3 Underweight
70 170 24.2 Normal
90 180 27.8 Overweight
90 170 31.1 Obese
When the program is run the output may look as follows:
Welcome to my BMI calculator!
Enter weight (in kilograms): 78
Enter height (in centimetres): 180
BMI is: 24.1
Normal
Save and close your file before moving on to the next part.
Leaving Certificate – Sample Paper 5
Computer Science, Section C – Higher level
(b) Open the program called Question16_B.py from your device.
Enter your Examination Number in the space provided on Line 2.
1 # Question 16(b)
2 # Examination Number:
3
4 # For this question it is useful to understand ...
5 # 1. randint(a, b) returns a random integer N such that a<=N<=b.
6 # 2. s.append(x) appends the element x to the end of list s.
7
8 from random import *
9
10 heights = [] # an empty list of heights
11 weights = [] # an empty list of weights
12
13 # Loop to build up the lists with random values
14 for count in range(10):
15 # a random integer between 150 and 210
16 heights.append(randint(150, 210))
17 # a random integer between 50 and 130
18 weights.append(randint(50, 130))
19
20 # Display the lists
The program creates two empty lists – heights and weights.
It then uses a for loop to populate both lists with 10 random values as follows:
‐ each element in heights is a random integer between 150 and 210 (cm)
‐ each element in weights is a random integer between 50 and 130 (kg)
Modify the program to do the following:
(i) Display the contents of both lists, along with the labels Heights and Weights.
When the program is run the output may look as follows:
Heights: [202, 180, 200, 152, 159, 165, 206, 208, 157, 154]
Weights: [87, 118, 106, 53, 96, 106, 87, 121, 129, 95]
(ii) Currently the program generates 10 pairs of values every time it is run. Modify the
program so that it generates a variable number of values entered by the user.
When the program is run the output may look as follows:
Enter the number of pairs of values you wish to generate: 7
Heights: [151, 198, 168, 197, 154, 197, 166]
Weights: [120, 95, 111, 89, 72, 87, 115]
Leaving Certificate – Sample Paper 6
Computer Science, Section C – Higher level
(iii) Extend the program to create and populate (using a separate loop) a third list called
bmi_values.
Each element of bmi_values should be calculated using the corresponding values
from heights and weights (that is bmi_values[i] should be calculated using
heights[i] and weights[i]).
You may wish to use the code from part (a) to calculate the BMI value.
The BMI values should be rounded to one decimal place.
When the program is run the output may look as follows:
Enter the number of pairs of values you wish to generate: 7
Heights: [178, 199, 160, 205, 203, 153, 166]
Weights: [106, 119, 59, 53, 92, 109, 105]
BMI values: [33.5, 30.0, 23.0, 12.6, 22.3, 46.6, 38.1]
Save and close your file before moving on to the next part.
Leaving Certificate – Sample Paper 7
Computer Science, Section C – Higher level
(c) Open the program called Question16_C.py from your device.
Enter your Examination Number in the space provided on Line 2.
1 # Question 16(c)
2 # Examination Number:
3
4 bmi_values = [24, 19, 33, 35, 27, 18, 15, 33, 35, 23, 32, 23]
The program initialises a list called bmi_values with 12 integer values.
Write a Python program to do the following:
(i) Determine and display the number of obese values in the list.
(Recall from part (a) that if the BMI is greater than or equal to 30 then it is categorised
as obese.)
When the program is run the output may look as follows:
Obese: 5
(ii) Determine and display the largest and second largest values in the list.
(Note that the list contains values that are repeated.)
When the program is run the output may look as follows:
Largest: 35
Second Largest: 33
(iii) Implement a general function that returns the nth largest value from the list.
Name the function find_nth_largest as shown in the function definition header:
def find_nth_largest(n, list_of_values):
The function accepts two parameters, n and list_of_values. The function body
should be coded to determine and return the nth largest value in the list.
An example of the function being used to determine the 3rd largest value of the list is
shown.
print(find_nth_largest(3, bmi_values))
When the program is run the output may look as follows:
32
Save your file.
Ensure that you have saved and closed all files before you finish the examination.
Leaving Certificate – Sample Paper 8
Computer Science, Section C – Higher level
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Leaving Certificate – Sample Paper 9
Computer Science, Section C – Higher level
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Leaving Certificate – Sample Paper 10
Computer Science, Section C – Higher level
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Leaving Certificate – Sample Paper 11
Computer Science, Section C – Higher level
Acknowledgements
None
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owner, and which may have been adapted, for the purpose of assessment, without the authors’ prior consent. This
examination paper has been prepared in accordance with Section 53(5) of the Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000.
Any subsequent use for a purpose other than the intended purpose is not authorised. The Commission does not
accept liability for any infringement of third‐party rights arising from unauthorised distribution or use of this
examination paper.
Leaving Certificate – Higher Level
Computer Science – Section C
Sample Paper
Time: 1 hour
