CIT Past Paper – Unit A
2003-2010 CIT Past Paper
Unit A - Information Processing
1.
(2003 CE Paper 1B)
Give that: annual interest = principal x annual interest rate
Peter uses a spreadsheet software package to calculate interest earned annually. He has typed the data and
formulae in a worksheet as follows: (Italic figures are generated by formulae.)
A
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Year
2003
2004
2005
B
Annual interest rate:
Principal:
Principal invested at the beginning of the year
1,000
1,030
C
0.03
1,000
Interest earned over the year
30
1,030,000
Total interest earned:
The formula in C4 is =B4*C1.
(a) Using cell references, write down the formula in B5.
(1 mark)
(b) (i) Peter copies the formula in C4 into C5. What is the formula in C5?
(ii) Peter finds that the displayed result in C5 is wrong. The correct value should be 30.9, Rewrite the
formula C4 so that copying the formula to C5 and C6 will not cause many error.
(iii) Instead of using call references, one possible formula in C4 is =1000*0.03. Give one advantage of
using cell references over actual numeric values.
(5 marks)
(c) Assume that Peter has worked out all correct formulae to calculate the interest warned over each year.
(i) Using a spreadsheet built-in function, write down the formula in C7 to calculate the total interest earned
over the three years.
(ii) Peter wants to create a bar chart to show the annual interest earned over the three years. State the cell
ranges to be used for the chart.
(2 marks)
2.
(2004 CE Paper 1B)
A school wants to computerize the late records of students. There are two suggestions, M1 and M2. In M1, all
record are stores in a file STUDENT_LATE. There is at least one record for each student. In M2, two files
STUDENT2 and LATE2 are used. There is one record for each student in STUDENT2 and one record for each
late entry in LATE2.
M1
STUDENT_LATE
Field Name
Width (bytes)
Name
30
SID
6
Class
2
ClassNo
2
LateDate
12
LateTime
12
Remark
Student Name
Student Number
Class
Class Number
Date of Late
Time of Late
Page 1
M2
STUDENT2
Field Name
Name
SID
Class
ClassNo
Late
Width (bytes)
30
6
2
2
2
Remark
Student Name
Student Number
Class
Class Number
Total number of late
LATE2
Field Name
SID
LateDate
LateTime
Width (bytes)
6
12
12
Remark
Student Number
Date of Late
Time of Late
CIT Past Paper – Unit A
(a) (i) If there are 1500 students in the school and the estimated total number of late entries per month is 100,
what are the minimum storage sizes of M1 and M2 respectively for a month? Express your answers in
bytes?
(ii) Beside using less storage, give one advantage of using M2 over M1.
(3 marks)
(b) The school decides to use M2. LATE2 will be used to update STUDENT2 at the end of each month.
(i) Among LATE2 and STUDENT2, which is a master file? Which is transaction file?
(ii) What kind of operating mode is used to update STUDENT2?
(iii) Write an algorithm to perform the updating in M2.
(5 marks)
3.
(2005 CE Paper 1B)
A secondary school uses a computer system, called EasyMark, for handling the examination marks of student.
The system consists of two modules: AVE and ORDER. AVE is responsible for computing the average mark for
a student. ORDER is responsible for arranging the students of a given class in the descending of their average
marks.
(a) Describe the input data and the output information of the modules AVE and ORDER respectively. (4 marks)
(b) Suggest two additional features to enhance the functionality of EasyMark.
(2 marks)
The school has 25 classes, 900 students in total, and each student has to take 8 subjects.
stores the students’ marks in a table in the following format of a record:
Class
Name
Subject
Suppose EasyMark
Mark
(c) How many records are there in the table?
(2 marks)
(d) State one problem in the use of this table and suggest one way of fixing it.
(2 marks)
(e) The school decides to install a Chinese handwriting pad for inputting Chinese characters in the Name field.
Give one advantage and one disadvantage for this input method.
(2 marks)
4.
(2006 CE Paper 1B)
ABC secondary school would like to inform parents about the summer timetable.
school, will type the following timetable using a word processor.
Miss Wong, a clerk of the
Summer Timetable
Period
Time
1st
8:30 – 9:00
2nd
9:00 – 9:35
Recess
9:35 – 9:50
3rd
9:50 – 10:20
4th
10:20 – 10:55
5th
10:55 – 11:25
Recess
11:25 – 11 :40
6th
11:40 – 12:15
7th
12:15 – 12:45
8th
12:45 – 13:15
(a) Miss Wong wants to emphasize the title ‘Summer Timetable’ by modifying the character attributes. Give
two possible modifications and describe the steps she should do.
(3 marks)
(b) (i) Miss Wong wants to use the spacebar to align the time intervals. State a disadvantage.
(ii) Instead of using the spacebar, suggest two methods in order to align the time intervals.
(3 marks)
(c) The school decides to send the timetable to parents using email. Miss Wong tries to copy and paste the
contents into an email as plain text instead of sending the document as an attachment. Give one advantage
and one disadvantage of doing so.
(2 marks)
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CIT Past Paper – Unit A
5.
(2007 CE Paper 1B)
(a) Referring to the ASCII list, find the bit patterns of the following characters using an 8-bit representation:
(i)
A
(ii) B
(2 marks)
There are two bit patterns, p and q, which are each 8 bits long.
An operation, p # q, is defined as follows:
a bit of p
0
0
1
1
the corresponding bit of q,
0
1
0
1
the corresponding bit of p # q
0
0
0
1
For example:
p
q
p#q
00110000
01010000
00010000
(b) Suppose that p and q are the bit patterns of the characters ‘A’ and ‘B’ respectively, as seen in the ASCII list,
with a leading zero.
(i) Find the bit pattern of p # q and the ASCII character it represents.
(ii) Find the bit pattern of 11110000 # p.
(iii) If 11110011 # e = 11110011
and 11011110 # e = 11011110, find the bit pattern of e.
(4 marks)
6.
(c) Suppose that p and q are the bit patterns of the decimal integers 12 and – 12 respectively, using the 8-bit
two’s complement representation. Find the bit pattern of p # q and the decimal integer it represents.
(2 marks)
(2007 CE Paper 2D)
To prepare a presentation, Tom obtained two different types of graphical images P and Q. P is obtained by
scanning a picture in a book. When P is enlarged for the presentation, it becomes vague with saw-tooth edges, Q is
imported from CD-ROM graphics library. When Q is enlarged, the picture quality remains unchanged.
(a) State the types of P and Q.
(b) Describe how Q is represented. Other quality, give one advantage of Q.
(c) P has a resolution of 320x480 pixels and one byte is assigned to represent each of the colours red, green and
blue.
(i) How many different levels of the red colour can be represented in P?
(ii) What is the color depth of P?
(iii) What happens if P is displayed by a system that only supports up to 256 colours?
(iv) What will be the file size of P in KB if no compression is applied?
(d) Tom also wants to include animations in his presentation. He finds two suitable software packages X and Y.
Their function are as follows:
Software package X
X1. Can link up different JPEG image files
into a sequence, and display the
sequence consecutively.
X2. Can loop to display a sequence
continuously.
X3. Allows importing of JPEG image files.
Software package Y
Y1. Can automatically generate in-between
images for two pictures.
Y2. Allows exporting of in-between images
in JPEG image file format.
Y3. Provides some basic drawing tools to
draw pictures.
X4. Allows exporting of a sequence as an
animation.
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CIT Past Paper – Unit A
Tom wants to create an animation such that a triangle changes gradually to a square. This animation will be
displayed repeatedly. By going through the functions in the software packages X and Y, fill in the following steps
to help Tom complete the task.
Step 1: Y3
Step 4: _____
7.
Step 2: _____
Step 5: _____
Step 3: _____
Step 6: _____
Step 7:
X4
(2007 CE Paper 2D)
Mei Ling uses a video camera to take some video to promote her school. The video clips are captured and saved
into a computer in three different video file formats, as listed in the following table.
Format
Resolution
Frame rate
Bit rate
Colour depth
P
320x240
30 fps
53 Mbps
16 bit
Q
720x480
60 fps
1.5 Mbps to 15 Mbps
24 bit
R
320x240
30 fps
200 Kbps to 5 Mbps
24 bit
(a) Mei Ling wants to combine several video clips into one long clip by using video editing software.
(i) What kind of effect can be added between two video clips to make them look smoothly joined?
(ii) What can be done to allow the audience to select and start to play the video at a certain scene?
(b) Which video file format is most suitable for preparing high picture quality playback?
support your answer.
Give one reason to
(c) (i) What is the maximum length (in seconds) of P video clip which can be stored in a 4.7 GB DVD disc
assuming no compression is applied?
(ii) What will be affected to the video playback if Mei Ling reduces the frame rate of P video clip to 15
fps?
(d) What happens to the display if Q video clip is played on a monitor with an aspect ratio of 4:3?
(e) Mei Ling finds that, although all computers in school work properly, some of them cannot play back R video
clip. Suggest why this may happen.
(f) Mei Ling’s video camera can handle video shooting of resolution up to 720x480 pixels, and her computer
can handle video clips capturing up to 1600x1200 pixels. What resolution should Mei Ling use when
capturing video clips from the video camera onto her computer? Explain your answer.
(g) (i) Explain briefly how the attribute “Bit rate” affects video clips.
(ii) Explain briefly how the attribute “Colour depth” affects video clips.
8.
(2008 CE Paper 1B)
Mr. Lee, the department head of the registry of ABC University, wants to computerize the course registration
system. He creates two database files, Personal and CourseReg, to store the personal details of student and
the subjects that student take, respectively.
Personal
Field Name
Name
SID
Sex
DOB
TelNo
Addr
Email
Field Type
character
character
character
character
character
character
character
Remark
Student name
Student number
Sex
Date of birth
Telephone number
Home address
Email address
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CIT Past Paper – Unit A
CourseReg
Field Name
SID
SubCode1
SubCode2
SubCode3
SubCode4
SubCode5
Field Type
character
character
character
character
character
character
Remark
Student number
Subject code of the first subject
Subject code of the second subject
Subject code of the third subject
Subject code of the fourth subject
Subject code of the fifth subject
An example of CourseReg is shown below:
SID
SubCode1 SubCode2 SubCode3
127768
012
124
025
453860
105
124
025
049532
012
110
011
454890
025
033
011
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
SubCode4
SubCode5
023
039
023
.
.
028
041
.
.
Some field of subject codes will be left empty if the number of subjects taken is led than five.
(a) (i) Which field should determine a record uniquely?
(ii) Why should the data type of SID be character instead of numeric?
(iii) The subject code is used instead of the subject name in CourseReg. Give two advantages.
(4 marks)
Mr. Lee modifies the database structure of CourseReg as follows:
CourseReg
Field Name
SID
SubCode
Field Type
character
character
Remark
Student number
Subject code
An example of CourseReg is shown below:
SID
SubCode
127768
012
127768
124
127768
025
453860
105
453860
124
453860
025
453860
023
453860
028
.
.
.
.
.
.
(b) Describe how such a modification benefits the system.
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(2 marks)
CIT Past Paper – Unit A
ABC University (Registration Sheet)
Name:
Student number:
Sex:
Email Address:
Subject Code 1:
Subject Code 2:
Subject Code 3:
Subject Code 4:
Subject Code 5:
During registration, each student has to fill in a registration sheet as shown above and return it to the registration office.
Jack, a clerk at the University, will input the data in a computer. Mr. Lee needs to eliminate all errors in the data entry
process. Hence, Jack plans to type the data twice in the computer but Mr. Lee does not think this is a good idea.
(c)
(i) Give two disadvantages of Jack’s plan.
(ii) Mr. Lee wants to improve the data entry process by
(1) redesigning the registration sheet for students to write, and
(2) automating the input process.
Briefly describe how to do both of these.
(d) The input process is now considered error-free.
on the data. Give two possible errors.
(6 marks)
However, the computer will still generate am error report
(2 marks)
(e) Students are required to verify their personal particulars and course registration information in the system.
Jack plans to put all student’s information including all the content of Personal and CourseReg clearly,
on the notice board outside the office so that students can check against it
Mr. Lee disagrees with Jack.
9.
Why?
What should Jack do instead?
(2 marks)
(2009 CE Paper 1B)
Mr Lo is responsible for an IT project in a school. He uses a document management system (DMS) to store
backdated examination papers produced by typewriter in the past twenty years. The three procedures are:
P1: Collect examination papers from teacher
P2: Convert he examination paper into computer files
P3: Create a backup of the computer files.
(a)
Briefly describe how Mr Lo will do the procedures when adopting the following processing methods.
(i) Real-time processing
(ii) Batch processing
(4 marks)
(b)
Suppose these examination papers have to be edited by a word processor after P2. Briefly describe two
functions that the DMS should provide in P2.
(2 marks)
(c)
The use of the DMS originates from the concept of the paperless office. Other than saving paper, give two
advantages of this project.
(2 marks)
The DMS will assign a unique, consecutive document number to each examination paper once the conversion is
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CIT Past Paper – Unit A
completed. On 22-11-2008, a teaching assistant uses the DMS and a summary report is produced, as shown below.
Summary Report
DMS
Date: 22-11-2008
Document number (first): K20001
Document number (last): K20118
Total number of documents: 118
Total number of single-sided A4 sheets: 200
Total number of double-sided A4 sheets: 320
(d) This kind of report is stored for record keeping and the data in bold are stored in a database.
(i) Other than the document numbers, state the most important and least important pieces of data in bold in
the report.
(ii) Suggest two pieces of information that should be added to the report in order to better describe and
identify this transaction.
(iii) Electronic copies of the documents are created and the hardcopies are no use any more. What is the
proper way to handle them?
(5 marks)
10. (2009 CE)
Mr Lee records the Annual School Concert using a video camera into a video file, concert.avi. Then she edits the
file by cutting the irrelevant video clips. Before uploading the video onto the school website, she further processes
the file to facilitate browsing.
(a)
Suggest and explain two ways to process the video file lastly.
(b) Ms Lee wants to capture the audio part of concert.avi into a audio file.
(i) Other than MP3, suggest an audio file format for Ms Lee.
(ii) Give one advantage and one disadvantage of the suggested file format in (b)(i) over MP3.
(c)
Ms Lee uploads video files onto the school websites. She finds that some students at home cannot view the
files properly due to the outdated computer hardware. Describe two possible situation.
(d) On the first page of the school website, there is a copyright statement, ' All rights reserved'. Give two
possible implications of this statement for the video files.
11. (2009 CE Paper 2D)
A museum of art has a collection of famous paintings. The museum wants to digitize the paintings and post them
onto its web site.
(a)
The museum considers using a scanner to digitize the paintings.
(i) Someone suggests using a scanner feeder to feed the paintings into the scanner automatically. Do you
agree with him? Justify your answer.
(ii) After scanning, the image can be saved as GIF, JPG or PNG file format. Which one is the most suitable
for preserving the quality of the image? Justify your answer.
(iii) The museum decides to use 24-bit color depth to scan the paintings instead of 32-bit color depth. Give
two reasons to support the decision.
(b) In the museum web site, there is a page displaying the thumbnails of the paintings.
(i) Give an advantage of this design.
(ii) In creating the thumbnails, what two attributes need to be adjusted in the original images?
(c)
The museum plans to share the images of these canned paintings through the Internet. A watermark will be
added to each image as shown below.
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CIT Past Paper – Unit A
(i) The museum plans to use layering technique to add the watermark. Give an advantage of using layers.
(ii) Give the steps that should be taken in order to complete the process of adding a watermark using
layering technique.
(d) Some users complain that the image of a painting is printed separately on more than one page when they use
the print menu in the browser. Suggest a web page design such that users can easily print the image on a
single page.
12. (2010 CE Paper 1B)
At home, through a browser, John uses a free online office application which includes word processing,
spreadsheet, presentation and database functions.
(a)
(i)
There are some other free offline office applications with the same functions of the online office
application. Why does John choose to use this online office application? Give two reasons.
(ii) Briefly describe three potential problems that John may experience when using this online office
application.
(b) John processes some multimedia elements when creating a presentation file.
(i)
When playing a video, the video can be controlled by play, stop, pause, rewind and fast-forward. Give
two other common control buttons.
(ii) The presentation file includes very high quality images and will be displayed using a projector. John
decides to lower resolution of the images. Give two reasons for this decision.
(iii) John decides to convert the presentation file to a PDF file for his friends. Other than preventing his
friends from modifying it, what is the advantage and disadvantage of this file conversion?
John creates two different designs for the first page of the presentation with text, a video and an image.
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CIT Past Paper – Unit A
(c)
Compare the two designs. Comment on whether they effectively present information in terms of text, video,
image and layout.
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CIT Past Paper – Unit A
2003-2010 CIT Past Paper
Unit A - Information Processing – Suggested Solution
1.
(
optional)
(a) =$B$4+$C$4 or
=$C$2+$C$4
=$B$4+$B$4*$C$1
or
=$C$2+$C$2*$C$1
or
=sum($B$4:$C$4)
(b) (i) B5*C2
(ii) =$B4*$C$1
(iii) If the content or value of the cell changes, the content of all other cells referring to this cell will be
changed or re-calculated accordingly and automatically.
(c) (i) =SUM(C4:C6)
(ii) A3:A6 and C3:C6
or
A4:A6 and C4:C6
2.
(a) (i) M1: 64*1,500=96,000 bytes
M2: 42*1,500+30*100=66,000 bytes
(ii) no data redundancy / can easily maintain integrity (when update / delete / insert)
(b) (i) master file: STUDENT2
transaction file: LATE2
(ii) batch
(c) (iii) For each record in the file LATE2,
Set Key = SID
Search for the record with SID = Key in the file STUDENT2
Increment Late by 1
3.
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
Input data (AVE): marks of different subjects for a student
(acceptable answer: marks(s) for a student / mark(s) for students)
- Output information (AVE): average mark of that student
- Input data (ORDER): students of a given class with their average marks
- Output information (ORDER): students sorted in descending order of their average marks (or
position/order of students)
(acceptable answer: sorted marks of the students)
(other reasonable answer)
-backup
- printout
- graphics
- searching/mark query (e.g. find max, min, range)
(other reasonable answer)
7200
The system cannot distinguish two students with the same name in the same class.
Solution: Add one more field, such as Student ID, which is unique for each student.
- Advantage: easy to learn/use
- Disadvantage: slow input speed/poorer recognition/time consuming
(any other reasonable answer)
4.
(a) bold, underline, italics, font size, font colour, font type (any two)
Mark/Select the title and select the character formatting feature
(b) (i) It may not align properly (nearly/tidily/vertically) due to inappropriate fonts.
(ii) Tab, columns, text box, table/tabling (any two)
(c)
Adv:
The size of the email is smaller.
It is safer to open an email without any attachment. (risk of virus infection)
No word processor (software) is required to open.
It is faster to upload/download the email.
(any one)
Disadv:
The original formatting features will be lost (changed)
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or
CIT Past Paper – Unit A
5.
(a) (i) A: 0100 0001
(ii) B: 0100 0010
(b) (i) bit of pattern of p # q : 0100 0000
the character: @
(ii) 0100 0000
(iii) 1111 1111
(c) bit pattern of p # q : 0000 0100
the integer: 4
6.
(a) P: bitmapped graphics
Q: vector graphics
(b) Q is represented by mathematical formulae.
One advantage of Q is that can keep the file size small each if the graphics is large.
(c) (i) 256 colors / 28 colors
(ii) 24 bits
(iii) Colors that are not available in the display device will be subscribed by nearest colors created from a
combination of colors that are available.
(iv) 320x480x24/8/1024 = 450 KB
(d) Y1, Y2, X3, X1, X2
7.
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
(f)
(g)
(i) Transition effect
(ii) Add a menu at the beginning of the video to link to the specific scenario.
Q is the most suitable format.
The resolution of Q is the highest among the three video formats.
(i) 4.7 GB/53 Mbps=4.7 × 8 × 1024 / 53 = 726 s
(ii) The motion is nor so smooth.
The image with 3:2 aspect ratio does not fit in a 4:3 display screen.
Mei Ling does not install the proper plug-in / decoder in the computers.
She should choose 720 × 480 pixels.
The visual quality will not be better even 1600 × 1200 pixels is used since the resolution of the source
is not high.
(i) The quality of the video clip will be better because higher bit rate has more number of bits used per
second to represent a video signal.
(ii) The higher the color depth, the more colors available so more natural of the colors in the video clip.
8.
(a) (i) SID or student number
(ii) It can handle leading zero(s).
(iii)It can save storage space. /
It can save time on data entry
It can reduce errors on data entry. /
It data in the system will not be affected by the change of the subject names.
(any two)
(b) It is flexible to increase more subjects. / It is easy to create queries for subject information.
(c) (i)It cannot eliminate all tying errors. (Not a complete solution)
It spends more time on data entry process. (more resources needed)
(ii) Step 1: Eliminate unnecessary entries (Name, Sex, Email address).
Step 2: In addition, create small boxes for students to fill in to represent the data they input and
students are no longer to write alphabets on the sheet.
Step 3: Put all the registration sheets on an optical mark reader machine / OMR / (scanner with suitable
software) to scan and collect the data.
(d)
1. Invalid data (e.g. subject code) are marked on the sheet.
2. Some important data (e.g. student number) are left empty.
(e) He should not publish students’ address and contact telephone numbers so as to preserve the data privacy.
He should arrange students to check their personal data privately.
Or he can just show SID instead of name for student to check their own information.
9.
(a)
(i) P3 is done by real-time processing. Backup copy is made immediately after a computer is created.
(ii) P1 and P2 are done by batch processing. The conversion process is performed after a batch of
examination papers are collected.
(b) DMS should be able to scan examination papers and save as image files.
DMS should have an OCR (optical character recognition) function to convert text in image file into text in
document file so that they can be edited.
(c) It can save storage space of the school.
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CIT Past Paper – Unit A
Teachers can search for past papers in a faster way.
Teachers can share past papers in an more efficient way.
(d) (i) date
total number of documents
(ii) username of the teacher assistant (user ID), machine ID, subject code, form/level/year,
teacher-in-charge
(iii) Send them to recycling companies / Re-use the clean side of paper / shred the paper
10. (a)
Divide it into several files for easier viewing of different parts.
Use streaming to reduce the waiting time.
Convert the file into a smaller one with lower resolution / frame rate for reducing the loading.
Convert the file into different file format for different media players.
(any two)
(b) (i) wave
(other reasonable)
(ii) Wave / WAV
Advantage: better sound quality / editable
Disadvantage: a larger file size (uncompressed)
(c) Description of computational power / Internet connection / display card
(d) ownership / limitation of use (view) / right of distribution
11. (a)
(i) Disagree. The feeder may be jammed and damage the paintings.
(ii) PNG format is the best because it uses lossless compression and supports more than 8-bit color depth,
(iii) Human eyes can only distinguish a limited number of colors. 32-bit color depth cannot improve the
image quality in the view of human eyes.
The file size is smaller and disk space can be save.
(b) (i) Allow users to choose the necessary images before downloading the whole image.
(ii) Resolution, colour depth or compression ratio.
(c) (i) The watermark can be easily adjusted and modified so as to fit on the original image.
(ii) Create a new layer and draw the image 'HK'; put the layer on top of the original imagje.
Adjust the transparency
Merge the layers / Adjust the size or location of the watermark.
(d) Add a "Print Friendly" function.
When a user uses the function, the browser will load the web page in a PDF file and the content will be
shown on the PDF file.
12. (a)
(i)
No need to install the software. / No need to handle maintenance or upgrade work.
It is easier for group work. / Easier for data sharing. / Reduce storage demand in the local computer.
(ii) There may be data loss due to disconnection when using the application.
If data transfer rate is low, the performance of the application will be poor.
Higher risk of exposure of his data.
(b) (i) video frame size / volume control / timeline / next chapter / replay / audio channels
(ii) It saves storage space.
The resolution of the image is higher than the output resolution of the projector. So, the very high
quality image cannot benefit the viewing.
It speeds up the loading of the file.
(iii) Advantage: PDF is portable so that his friends can open the presentation file under different OS.
/ The page layout and format are fixed and it helps the printing.
Disadvantage: Some transition / animation effects cannot be preserved.
(c) Text in Design 2 is larger and easier to read.
Video in Design 2 is larger and it provides a better viewing.
The aspect ratio of the image in Design 2 is distorted and some information is missing.
In Design 2, less blank space is left out and it has a better use of the display area.
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