BBC electronics fail
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8128133.stm shows some multiple choice questions on GCSE design & technology. Question 4 the answer is given as "inverter", to which the BBC have helpfully added the explanation "which is an electrical device that converts direct current (DC) to alternating current (AC)." Unfortunately that's the wrong sort of inverter! Lesson: Google is not a substitute for knowing the answer because terms may be ambiguous.

My thoughts on the other questions:
1) I've always wondered that myself but never bothered to find out
2) Shouldn't you reword this as "which of the following 5 items does not ..."?
3) Transistor. Got one!
4) see above
5) Can't remember. The colour code has just enough items to be fiddly to learn and like the times tables you don't really need to know it either, there's always another way to the answer.
6) see below
7) Never heard of it.

6) is the sort of question that really put me off GCSE CDT. What is this question really trying to discover? Is it the recall of some physical fact that may be useful? Is it checking that you've absorbed the official national curriculum approved process of thought for design? Not even that - it's asking about some trivial classification of research methods (no doubt from the list of allowed thought modes compiled in Whitehall).

I remember that we weren't allowed to come up with designs based on our judgement and then make an ex post facto explanation of why it was a good idea; there was a process to be followed. Very alienating.