Following feedback from teachers, we have made minor amendments to our GCSE Computer Science specification, sample assessment material and assessment guide.

GCSE Computer Science J277 specification

We have updated and clarified our guidance in sections 1.2.1, 1.2.4, 1.3.2 and 1.5.1 of the specification, for example:

• In section 1.2.4, we now use ‘character code’ rather than ‘code’ in the guidance, ie ‘the character code for ‘B’ will be one more than the character code for ‘A’.’
• In section 1.2.1 we have updated the text to include ‘Cache’.

Please refer to the summary of updates on page 44 of the GCSE Computer Science specification for a list of all the amendments.

You can view and download the amended specification (version 2.4) from the qualification page on our website and Teach Cambridge.

Sample assessment material – J277/02

As part of our accessibility principles, we’ve amended the formatting of questions 1, 4 and 8 in our sample question paper ‘J277/02 Computational thinking, algorithms and programming’.

You can view and download the amended sample question paper (version 1.6), from the Assessment section of the qualification page on our website, and the Assessment > Exams > Sample assessment materials section on Teach Cambridge. 

Assessment guide

We have made minor amendments on pages 5, 10 and 19 of our assessment guide ‘Understanding the assessment: Exploring our question papers’. For a list of all the amendments, see the summary of updates on page 21.

You can view and download the amended assessment guide (version 2.0) from the Assessment section of the qualification page on our website, and the Assessment > Assessment support section on Teach Cambridge. 

If you have any queries about this update please contact our Computer Science Subject Advisor team at computerscience@ocr.org.uk or call our Customer Support Centre on 01223 553998.

Qualification

• Computer Science (9-1) - J277 (from 2020)