Lesson 4.8.1.1

4.8.1.1 Moral, ethical, legal and cultural issues of computing Quiz: AQA Computer Science, Unit 8

20 questions

Written by Revision Ninja · Last reviewed 11 October 2026

In partnership with Revision Ninja

Lesson 4.8.1.1, Moral, ethical, legal and cultural issues of computing: 20 multiple choice questions for the AQA Computer Science (7517), Unit 8: Consequences of uses of computing, written with Revision Ninja.

Host it live on the board and students join with a game code on their own devices, or revise alone with Free Play. The answers are revealed in the game.

Host this setFree Play

The 20 questions

  1. Which of the following is an example of a moral issue in computing?

    • How many megabytes of RAM a laptop needs to run ordinary office software smoothly for a typical working day
    • Whether a developer should release code that is known to contain a security flaw risking users' data
    • Which programming language is the most efficient for building a large database used across the whole company
    • Whether a computer should be replaced after three years in order to save energy and reduce waste in the office

  2. Why does the specification say that computer scientists have power and responsibility?

    • Their work is regulated only by government, so they carry no personal duty for the effects of the code they release
    • They are the only people able to use computers to communicate with one another across the world in real time
    • The algorithms and code they devise can affect many people, so they must consider the values embedded in them
    • Their salaries make them responsible for the total cost of computing equipment used across the whole of society

  3. What does the spec mean by the issue of scale in software?

    • Software needs a larger team of developers each time a single feature is added, so that the work can be divided up
    • Software cannot be used by more than a few hundred people at any one time before it stops responding to requests
    • Software must be given more memory each time the number of users increases, which is why systems are upgraded regularly
    • Software can reach the whole world, so one developer's decision can create great good or great harm

  4. Which statement reflects the principle of informed consent in the Street View case study?

    • Companies may collect any data that is publicly visible, without informing anyone
    • People should be aware of what is collected about them and have the chance to agree to it
    • Consent is required only after a service has been used for a full year
    • Consent is needed only from government bodies, not from the individual residents

  5. Which description best fits a hypothetical as a teaching technique?

    • A computer simulation that predicts the outcome of a national election
    • A survey of public opinion about a new piece of technology
    • A simplified scenario used to isolate and examine an ethical principle quickly
    • A real legal case used to examine the detail of a court's decision

  6. What does a case study allow students to explore?

    • The electrical properties of different types of transmission medium in detail
    • The mathematical proof that an algorithm is correct for every possible input
    • The tension between competing ethical values and principles in a real-world setting
    • The exact syntax of a programming language in a controlled classroom environment

  7. Which of these is a risk of modern digital technology identified in the spec?

    • It reduces the cost of data storage to zero for every user of the technology
    • It removes the need for any legislation about the handling of data
    • It prevents any personal information from being shared with anyone else
    • It makes it easier to monitor behaviour and to amass and analyse personal information

  8. Which challenge facing legislators in the digital age is most significant?

    • Keeping laws relevant as technology changes quickly and crosses national boundaries
    • Deciding which programming language government departments should use for their systems
    • Choosing the cable types that must be installed in every home network in the country
    • Setting the clock speeds of servers that process public records for the state

  9. Which example shows software embedding moral and cultural values?

    • A recommendation algorithm that favours some content over other content according to the designers' choices
    • A binary search routine that finds an item in a sorted list in fewer steps than a linear search would need
    • A clock circuit that sets the timing of a processor's operations by generating regular pulses at a fixed frequency
    • A compiler that translates source code into machine code for a particular processor, using only fixed technical rules

  10. Why does the specification suggest the Street View case study is useful for teaching?

    • It shows how to write a map rendering algorithm in a single pass over the data, which is the main technical skill
    • It highlights conflicts between individual and cultural expectations, informed consent, and commercial value
    • It demonstrates the hardware required to capture panoramic images from a vehicle driving along public roads
    • It proves that collecting public data is legal in every country in the world, so there are no restrictions to consider

  11. A developer builds a system that millions of people will use. Which principle from the spec applies most directly?

    • Scale means the developer needs to test the system on only a single computer
    • Scale means small decisions can have large effects, so the developer must consider the wider impact
    • Scale means the developer is free from moral responsibility for how the system is used
    • Scale means the system should use the lowest possible memory regardless of the number of users

  12. Which statement about law and computing is most accurate?

    • Computing is outside the reach of any law, because it operates only in the digital world
    • Laws about computing apply only in the country in which the software happened to be written
    • Legal frameworks have always kept pace with computing developments and need no updates
    • Legal frameworks often lag behind technology, which makes new developments hard to regulate

  13. Which is an example of a cultural issue in computing?

    • A database that stores customer records in a normalised form to avoid duplicate data across the tables
    • A processor that runs at a higher clock speed than its predecessor, which changes the performance of the system
    • A website that presents content differently in different countries because of local customs and expectations
    • A network that uses a bus topology in a small office, which affects how cables are laid out in the building

  14. Which individual (moral) issue is most closely connected to the spec's point about monitoring behaviour?

    • Whether a server should use solid-state or magnetic disks for its storage, given the cost and the workload
    • Whether a laptop battery lasts long enough for a full school day of lessons and independent study in the library
    • Whether a printer's toner cartridge should be recycled after it is empty, to reduce waste from the office
    • Whether people's privacy is respected when their online activity is tracked without their knowledge

  15. A company uses personal data to target advertising. Which combination of concerns is most relevant?

    • Serial transmission, parity checks and the baud rate of the link that is used to send data between the devices
    • Packet routing, DNS registries and the value of the subnet mask used to identify the network part of an address
    • Clock speed, word length and the size of the cache memory that the processor uses to hold frequently used data
    • Privacy, consent, and the risk that personal information is used beyond its original purpose

  16. Why can one programmer's choice create great harm at scale?

    • Harm occurs only when the programmer deliberately deletes data from the system
    • The code runs on only one machine, so the impact is limited to that single machine
    • The same code can run for millions of users at once, so any flaw or bias spreads widely
    • Harm is possible only if the program is written directly in assembly language

  17. Which trade-off is typical of a proposal such as Street View?

    • The speed of the network weighed against the length of the cable used to connect it
    • The clock speed weighed against the size of the address bus in the computer
    • The cost of the processor weighed against the number of registers that it provides
    • The benefits of a useful service weighed against the risks to privacy and cultural expectations

  18. In the specification's hypothetical, what should be asked about a proposal before it is implemented?

    • Which programming language is fastest, and how many lines of code the final system is likely to need to run
    • Whether the proposal can use more memory than the existing hardware can provide without any further upgrade
    • How many processor cores the proposed system should use in total, and how they will be shared among the users
    • What questions should be asked, who should be consulted, and what benefits, risks and safeguards exist

  19. Which statement describes a challenge that the spec highlights for computer scientists?

    • They must always choose the fastest algorithm regardless of its effects on people
    • They must weigh the ability to produce great good against the ability to cause great harm
    • They have no responsibility for the software once it has been sold to a customer
    • They need to memorise the full specification of each processor in use

  20. Which approach would best help students evaluate the trade-offs of a new computing proposal?

    • Learning the syntax of several programming languages that could be used to build the proposal in practice
    • Working through a case study that weighs benefits, harms and conflicting values from several viewpoints
    • Calculating the bandwidth needed to send the proposal to every user at once across the whole network
    • Memorising the cost of each device used in the proposal in full detail, so that the total can be checked later

All AQA Computer Science quizzes