1- How do you think a business could make use of data mining when hiring staff?
The business could mine data about what kind of qualifications and what kind of people are employed by its competitors. The business could use data mining to find out what characteristics of an employee are a good match for their company
Exam-style questions
1. Explain what is meant by a cryptocurrency. (3)
All of the following [3]:
• A cryptocurrency is a type of digital currency.
• A cryptocurrency is decentralised.
• A cryptocurrency uses encryption algorithms and cryptographic techniques as a security method.
2. Explain two advantages and two disadvantages of the use of digital currency. (4)
Four from the following (two per advantage and disadvantage) [4]:
Advantages • Don’t need to carry physical money.
• User can stop transactions if digital method is lost/stolen.
• All transactions are encrypted.
• Can speed up payment.
• Don’t need to exchange physical currency in foreign countries. Disadvantages
• Always the risk that a transaction can be hacked.
• Some people may lose track of their spending as they don’t hand over actual money.
• Some people are anxious about using digital payment methods, especially contactless ones
3. Explain the difference between a chat room and a forum. [4]
Four from [4]:
• A chatroom is an online service that allows multiple users to send each other instant messages Review Copy - Cambridge University Press - Review Copy
• … whereas a forum allows users to post questions and thoughts for other users to respond to.
• A chatroom is designed to be a live conversation
• … whereas a forum is designed to allow user to return to the forum at any time to see what other users have posed as a response.
• A chatroom is not normally monitored by a moderator
• whereas a forum will often have a moderator checking the posts meet the rules.
4. Describe the process of data mining. [8]
Eight from [8]:
• Stage 1 is the business understanding stage
• … it is where the objectives are set and the criteria for success are established.
• Stage 2 is the data understanding stage
•… this involves the initial collection of data from the various sources available.
• Stage 3 is the data preparation stage
• … this is where the data is taken through a whole process of selection, cleansing, construction and formatting.
• Stage 4 is the data modelling stage
• … during this stage various test scenarios are generated to model the data.
• Stage 5 is the evaluation stage
• … this is when the results generated by the models are evaluated.
• Stage 6 is the deployment stage
• … this is when a report is created to present the findings of the data mining to stakeholders.
5. Explain two ways that data mining can be used. [4]
Four from [4]:
• It can be used by businesses to aid planning
• … informing any actions that are taken on a daily basis.
• It can be used by governments to aid national security
• … by analysing intelligence gathered to highlight current activity in a country.
• It can be used in surveillance
• … surveillance data can be analysed to predict issues such as criminal activity.
6. Explain two advantages and one disadvantage of learners using a MOOC to improve their work-based skill set. [6]
Six from (max four for advantages) [6]:
Advantages
• A large selection of courses are available
• … so a user can enhance their learning in anything that they are interested it.
• Can provide an employee with a competitive advantage
* … as it demonstrates their motivation to learn and improve in their own time.
• They are free of cost
• … so all users who can access them will be able to learn.
• The number of people on a course is often unlimited
• … so people do not have to wait for a place to become available.
• User can learn at their own rate
• … this means that users are more able to fit the learning around the own schedule.
Disadvantages
• There are a huge selection of courses available
• … this may overwhelm a learner if they do not know which one to choose. • There are often a large number of people on a course
• … so the tutor/educator may not have a lot of dedicated time to help each person on the course.
• … it may also be difficult for a tutor/education to keep track of the progress of each person on the course.
• Some learners may struggle to complete the tasks
• … and may choose to only complete those ones that they know will be assessed.
7. Discuss the impact of the central bank moving to a digital based currency only. [6]
Six from [6]:
• This would mean that banks create their own version of a digital currency.
• This may mean that physical currency disappears altogether.
• This could save money for the government as they do not need to think about the cost of creating the physical currency.
• This could save the bank money as they do not need to have huge security system in places, like vaults, in which physical currency is stored.
• This could cost the banks money as they will need to have very strong security systems for their digital currency.
* The speed of the exchange of money from bank to bank could be improved.
• Criminal activity such as money laundering may decrease.
• Some people do not like the idea of the invasion of privacy that will exist by tracking each digital currency transaction.
8. Discuss the impact of the use of IT in banking and finance. [6]
All of the following [6]:
• Banks heavily rely on IT to keep all the records about their customers. If they had to store paper versions of this data, it would take up huge amounts of physical storage space.
• IT can be used in the form of ATMs to access physical currency that we have stored in our bank account. This means that a user no longer needs to go into a bank branch to queue to get money out of their account.
• IT can be used for online banking, allowing a user to access many financial and banking facilities online, without the need to go into a bank branch.
• IT can be used for online banking, allowing users to access many banking and financial services 24/7.
• IT can be used for online banking, allowing users to see all the transactions instantly, without needing to wait for a paper statement to be delivered.
• People can use comparison websites to compare the offers of banks and financial services. This means they can easily find the best and right deal for their circumstances
