COBOL

High school (ages 12+)
Science & Technology

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/cobol

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is the language paradigm?Primarily imperative and procedural; object-oriented features added since 2002
2. What is the standardization body?ISO/IEC (current standard ISO/IEC 1989:2023)
3. What does COBOL stand for and when was it created?COBOL stands for COmmon Business-Oriented Language. It was created in 1959.
4. Why do banks and big companies still use COBOL?COBOL runs many important tasks like ATM withdrawals and credit card payments. It is very reliable and has been used for many years, so people keep it working.

Compiled Language: A programming language whose source code is translated into machine code by a compiler before execution.
Imperative Programming: A programming paradigm that describes computation in terms of statements that change a program's state.
Procedural Programming: A programming paradigm based on the concept of procedure calls, where statements are structured into procedures.