Practice Hardware & Software in CS Thinking

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

Quick Recap

Hardware is the physical components of a computer (processor, memory, storage, peripherals). Software is the set of instructions (programs) that tell hardware what to do.

Hardware is the body, software is the mind. One is physical stuff you can touch; the other is instructions that make it useful.

Example 1

easy
Classify each as hardware or software: (a) RAM, (b) web browser, (c) keyboard, (d) operating system, (e) hard drive, (f) word processor.

Example 2

medium
Explain the relationship between hardware and software using the example of playing a video on a computer. What role does each play?

Example 3

medium
A school is buying new computers. Explain why upgrading the RAM and switching from hard drives to SSDs would improve performance. What type of component is each (hardware or software)?

Example 4

hard
Explain what firmware is and how it relates to both hardware and software. Give two examples of devices that use firmware.
← Back to Hardware & Software Worked Examples