Cambridge AS & A Level Computer Science
13.3Floating-point numbers, representation and manipulation
Floating-point numbers, representation and manipulation in Cambridge AS & A Level Computer Science: what the syllabus expects you to know, the learning objectives and how to practise.
Subtopic45 practice questions2 lessons
Learning objectives
What the syllabus expects you to be able to do.
- 13.3.1Describe the format of binary floating-point real numbers in two's complement and convert them to denary and back.
- 13.3.2Normalise floating-point numbers and explain why.
- 13.3.3Explain the effect of the allocation of bits to mantissa and exponent.
- 13.3.4Explain approximation, rounding errors, overflow and underflow.
Lessons
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Computer arithmetic errors: overflow, underflow and rounding
45 min
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Floating-point real numbers: mantissa and exponent
55 min
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Sample question
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