AQA A-Level CS Unit 5: Computer Organisation and Architecture Exam And Answers 100% Correct 2024.

What is a bus? - Answer A set of parallel wires connecting two or more components of a computer What are the three computer buses and what do they do? - Answer - Address Bus carries addresses sent by the processor to access particular memory locations - Data Bus carries data from memory - Control Bus carries control signals What are examples of some control signals? - Answer - Memory write - Memory read - Interrupt request - Clock What is a word of data? - Answer A word is the unit of data (no. of bits) a processor can process at one time e.g. most computers have 32 or 64 bit word lengths What are the 4 components of the processor and their functions? - Answer - ALU (to perform arithmetic and logic operations) - Control Unit (FDE cycle and control activities of CPU) - Clock (generates signals to synchronise CPU operations) - Registers (very fast memory for specific purposes/holding necessary data) What are the 5 dedicated registers in the processor? - Answer - Program counter (holds address of next instruction) - Current Instruction Register (holds current instruction)