Strong passwords – practice for Years 5–9

Sample questions on Strong passwords with the right answer and a worked solution, from easy to hard. In the Pickles Academy app a child gets new questions of the same kind every time, so they can't just learn the answers by heart.

Subject

Computing

Year

Years 5–9

Curriculum area

Digital technology

Question types: Which password is stronger?

Sample questions

1. Question 1 Easy

   Which password is the safest?

   A   qwerty
   B   Adam2012
   C   123456
   D   111111
   E   #S23?D33Bjy7
   

   1. A) password A
   2. B) password B
   3. C) password C
   4. D) password D
   5. E) password E
   Show the solution

   Answer: E) password E

   How it works: Password E is long, has small and capital letters, digits and symbols, and is not a known word or pattern. The others are short or among the passwords attackers try first.

2. Question 2 Normal

   Which password is stronger, and why?

   A   Jakub2014!
   B   &7Y@yG4&H?
   

   1. A) B, because A has a name and a year that can be guessed
   2. B) Both are equally strong, as they are the same length
   3. C) A, because it is easier to remember
   4. D) A, because it has an exclamation mark
   5. E) B, because it is longer
   Show the solution

   Answer: A) B, because A has a name and a year that can be guessed

   How it works: B, because A has a name and a year that can be guessed.

3. Question 3 Hard

   An attacker tries 1000 PINs a second. How many seconds at most does it take to try every PIN with 4 digits?

   Show the solution

   Answer: 10

   How it works: 10^4 : 1000 = 10 000 : 1000 = 10

All Computing topics