Practice Data Representation in CS Thinking

Use these practice problems to test your method after reviewing the concept explanation and worked examples.

Quick Recap

The way information—numbers, text, images, and sound—is encoded as binary digits (0s and 1s) inside a computer. Different encoding schemes map real-world data to binary patterns, such as ASCII/Unicode for text, RGB for colors, and sampling for audio.

Turning real-world things (text, images, sound) into numbers a computer can process.

Example 1

easy
A computer stores the character 'A' as the number 65 (ASCII). Explain why computers use numbers to represent characters.

Example 2

medium
Explain how a computer represents a colour image using binary. What are pixels and colour depth?

Example 3

medium
Sound is analogue but computers are digital. Describe how analogue sound is converted to digital form, using the terms 'sample rate' and 'bit depth'.

Example 4

hard
Explain the difference between lossless and lossy compression. Give an example of each and explain when you would choose one over the other.
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