Data types Practice Questions

Question 1

What is the main difference between a list and a set in Python?

Accepted Answer

Lists are ordered and allow duplicates, sets are unordered and unique — Lists maintain order and allow duplicates. Sets are unordered (no index) and contain only unique elements. Both are mutable. Sets are faster for membership testing.

Question 2

Which data type would be most appropriate for storing a student's age in a programming language?

Accepted Answer

Integer — An Integer (or INT) is used for whole numbers, which is suitable for representing a student's age (e.g., 16, 17). A String is for text, a Boolean for true/false values, and a Float (or Real) for numbers with decimal places.

Question 3

Which of the following is an example of unstructured data?

Accepted Answer

A collection of customer reviews in text form — Unstructured data lacks a predefined format or schema. Text, images, audio, and video are common examples. Structured data, like spreadsheets and databases, is organized in rows and columns.

Question 4

Which data type is used to store a sequence of characters in Python?

Accepted Answer

String — A string (str) is used to store text, e.g., 'hello'. Lists and tuples store collections of items, and dictionaries store key-value pairs. Strings are specifically for character sequences.

Question 5

A retailer uses a loyalty card to record purchases and then sends personalized offers based on past buying habits. Which type of data is being used for this marketing strategy?

Accepted Answer

First-party data — First-party data is collected directly from customers by the company itself. Second-party data is shared by a trusted partner, third-party data is bought from external sources, and public data is openly available.

Question 6

A student is writing a program to store the number of students in a school. The number will never exceed 2000. Which data type is most appropriate?

Accepted Answer

Integer — An integer is used for whole numbers without decimals. The number of students is a whole number and fits within the integer range. Real is for decimals, Boolean is true/false, and String is for text.

Data types

Subtopics in this area

Data types Revision Guide

Learning Objectives

Sample Exam Questions

Related Topics in OCR GCSE Computer Science

Additional programming techniques

Boolean logic

Programming fundamentals

Primary storage (memory)