ITPEC IP April 2022 Question 8

Fortran and C programs are converted into machine language, then executed — the CPU can execute only machine-language instructions.

Machine language is the set of instructions a CPU decodes and executes directly; each instruction is a bit pattern of 0s and 1s defined by the processor. Programs written in a high-level language such as Fortran or C are translated into machine language by a compiler (or run through an interpreter) before the CPU can execute them.

Answer (a)

Why not others:

• •(b) — machine language is the lowest-level language; high-level languages such as Fortran and C are the ones close to human notation
• •(c) — instructions are binary bit patterns (often written in hexadecimal for readability), not sequences of decimal numbers
• •(d) — almost all application software is written in high-level languages; writing machine language by hand is slow, error-prone and tied to one processor

Key rule: High-level source code → compiler or interpreter → machine language (binary) → executed by the CPU; assembly language is the human-readable form one step above machine language.

Algorithm and Programming · AI-written, may contain errors