A school needs to create a database to store examination results. (a) Describe two advantages of using a computerised database rather than a paper-based fil...
Question 1 Report
A school needs to create a database to store examination results.
(a) Describe two advantages of using a computerised database rather than a paper-based filing system. [2]
(b) Explain what is meant by a composite primary key and give an example of when it might be used. [2]
(c) State two ways in which data can be exported from a database for use in other software applications. [2]
Answer Details
(a) Two advantages of using a computerised database rather than a paper-based filing system:
- Faster searching: A computerised database can search thousands of records in seconds using queries, whereas finding a specific student's results in paper files could take minutes. [1]
- Automatic reporting: Reports, statistics and summaries (such as average grades per subject) can be generated automatically, whereas paper-based systems require manual calculation. [1]
(b) A composite primary key is made up of two or more fields combined [1] to uniquely identify a record. For example, in an examination results table, StudentID alone is not unique (a student takes multiple subjects) and SubjectCode alone is not unique (many students take the same subject). However, the combination of StudentID and SubjectCode together uniquely identifies each exam result. [1]
(c) Two ways data can be exported from a database for use in other software:
- Export as a CSV (comma-separated values) file, which can be opened in spreadsheet software such as Excel. [1]
- Export as an XML file, which preserves data structure and can be read by many different applications. [1]
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