8 · Databases

8.1 Database Concepts — file-based limitations, relational features, terminology, E-R diagrams, normalisation to 3NF. 8.2 Database Management Systems — DBMS features, developer interface, query processor. 8.3 DDL and DML — SQL for defining structure and for querying and maintaining data.

🧩 Jigsaw

155 concepts mapped to the syllabus

🎯 Pack

148 question/answer pairs

What to know about this topic

The largest topic in the paper, and the most predictable

119 pages of 9618 Legend — more than any other topic. Databases appears as a whole multi-part question in every paper since 2021, and it is built the same way each time: scenario → table definitions → E-R diagram → terminology → normalisation → SQL. The later parts depend on reading the table definitions correctly in the first, so work them in order.

Indexing — named in the syllabus, examined zero times

Every other term in the terminology list (entity, tuple, attribute, all four key types, all three relationship degrees, referential integrity) has been examined repeatedly. Indexing has never appeared in a question in either series.

AVG — the same story in 8.3

The syllabus names SUM, COUNT and AVG. SUM and COUNT appear in almost every paper; AVG has appeared zero times in either series. ORDER BY appeared for the first time ever in w25.

"Are, or are not, in 3NF"

9618 has asked this twice — and both times the answer was that the tables are in 3NF. The harder half of the bullet has no 9618 precedent, so the model answers for it come from 9608.

Two syllabus bullets have never been examined at all

8.3.1 (DDL) and 8.3.2 (DML) have completely empty pages in the Legend. They are tested only indirectly, through the SQL questions.

Source material

• 9618 — Database Concepts · 9618 — DBMS · 9618 — DDL and DML
• 9608 — Database Concepts · 9608 — DBMS · 9608 — DDL and DML

⬅ 7 · Ethics and Ownership · 📘 Paper 1 · 🧩 Architecture