Deck 1: Introduction

Question 1

Which of the following is the definition of processor?

A) the hardware that executes instructions
B) a physical chip that contains one or more CPUs
C) the basic computation unit of the CPU
D) including multiple computing cores on the same CPU

Answer 1

B

Question 2

The two separate modes of operating in a system are

A) supervisor mode and system mode
B) kernel mode and privileged mode
C) physical mode and logical mode
D) user mode and kernel mode

Answer 2

D

Question 3

Which of the following storage medium is the slowest regarding access speed?

A) cache
B) solid state drive
C) register
D) main memory

Answer 3

B

Question 4

Which of the following is tertiary storage medium?

A) register
B) magnetic tapes
C) main memory
D) hard-disk drive

Question 5

The device controller _____ an interrupt by asserting a signal on the interrupt request line.

A) raises
B) catches
C) dispatches
D) clears

Question 6

Which of the following is NOT secondary storage device?

A) random access memory
B) solid state disks
C) optical disk
D) magnetic tape

Question 7

Which of the following programs runs all the time on the computer?

A) compiler
B) assembler
C) text editor
D) kernel

Question 8

Which of the following will trigger an interrupt?

A) kernel function
B) software execution
C) CPU execution
D) I/O completion

Question 9

Where is the location of L1 cache?

A) inside CPU core
B) inside processor but outside CPU core
C) inside main memory
D) inside registers

Question 10

In what way is an operating system like a government?

A) It seldom functions correctly.
B) It creates an environment within which other programs can do useful work.
C) It performs most useful functions by itself.
D) It is always concerned primarily with the individual's needs.

Question 11

Which of the following technology reduces the overhead for bulk data movement?

A) Direct Memory Access (DMA)
B) Non-uniform Memory Access (NUMA)
C) Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP)
D) Storage Area Network (SAN)

Question 12

Which of the following contains the addresses of all the service routines?

A) page table
B) interrupt vector
C) system call table
D) file descriptor table

Question 13

Which of the following stage triggers the CPU switch from user program to interrupt processing?

A) I/O request
B) transfer done
C) interrupt signaled
D) interrupt handled

Question 14

Which of the following is nonvolatile?

A) register
B) cache
C) main memory
D) hard-disk drive

Question 15

____ operating systems are designed primarily to maximize resource utilization.

A) PC
B) Handheld computer
C) Mainframe
D) Network

Question 16

Which of the following is the denotation of 1024³ bytes?

A) KB
B) MB
C) GB
D) TB

Question 17

Which of the following is loosely coupled?

A) multiprocessor systems
B) single-processor system
C) multi-core processor
D) clustered system

Question 18

Which of the following components of a computer system defines the ways to use system resources to solve computing problems?

A) application programs
B) operating system
C) computer hardware
D) computer logo

Question 19

Which of the following clears the interrupt by servicing the device?

A) interrupt request line
B) interrupt-controller hardware
C) interrupt vector
D) interrupt service routine

Question 20

The CPU catches the interrupt and ____ it to the interrupt handler

A) raises
B) catches
C) dispatches
D) clears

Question 21

Describe why multi-core processing is more efficient than placing each processor on its own chip.

Question 22

Why is main memory not suitable for permanent program storage or backup purposes? Furthermore, what is the main disadvantage to storing information on a magnetic disk drive as opposed to main memory?

Question 23

Describe why direct memory access (DMA) is considered an efficient mechanism for performing I/O.

Question 24

Explain the difference between protection and security.

Question 25

Explain the purpose of an interrupt vector.

Question 26

Distinguish between system and application programs.

Question 27

Explain cache coherency.

Question 28

What role do device controllers and device drivers play in a computer system?

Question 29

Computer systems can be divided into four approximate components. What are they?

Question 30

Which of the following computing environments place rigid time requirements on the operation of a processor or the flow of data?

A) traditional computing
B) real-time embedded system
C) client-server computing
D) peer-to-peer computing

Question 31

Which of the following are used by Linux kernel as data structures?

A) Lists, Stacks, and Queues
B) Trees
C) Hash Functions and Maps
D) Bitmaps
E) All of the above

Question 32

Describe the operating system's two modes of operation.

Question 33

Which of the following principles is used for adding and removing items from a stack?

A) first in first out (FIFO)
B) last in first out (LIFO)
C) random order
D) round robin

Question 34

Explain why an operating system can be viewed as a resource allocator.

Question 35

Which of the following statements is false?

A) Mobile devices must be concerned with power consumption.
B) Mobile devices can provide features that are unavailable on desktop or laptop computers.
C) The difference in storage capacity between a mobile device and laptop is shrinking.
D) Mobile devices usually have fewer processing cores than a standard desktop computer.

Question 36

Why are clustered systems considered to provide high-availability service?

Question 37

What is a bootstrap program, and where is it stored?

Question 38

Describe the differences between physical, virtual, and logical memory.

Question 39

Distinguish between uniform memory access (UMA) and non-uniform memory access (NUMA) systems.

Question 40

Which of the following principles is used for adding and removing items from a queue?

A) first in first out (FIFO)
B) last in first out (LIFO)
C) random order
D) round robin

Question 41

A system call is triggered by hardware.

Question 42

Explain the difference between singly, doubly, and circularly linked lists.

Question 43

On UNIX, the setuid attribute on a program causes that program to run with the user ID of the current user's ID.

Question 44

The process runs with effective UID all the time until the process is stopped.

Question 45

MapReduce is a system which allows for parallel processing of data across nodes in the cluster.

Question 46

Distinguish mobile computing from traditional desktop computing.

Question 47

Solid state disks are generally faster than magnetic disks.

Question 48

Processors for most mobile devices run at a slower speed than a processor in a desktop PC.

Question 49

VMware is a virtual machine manager when it manages guest operating systems.

Question 50

Solid state disks are considered volatile storage.

Question 51

A system call runs in kernel mode only.

Question 52

Describe cloud computing.

Question 53

Describe the compute-server and file-server types of server systems.

Question 54

Skype uses a hybrid peer-to-peer approach.

Question 55

Virtually all modern operating systems provide support for SMP

Question 56

What two operating systems currently dominate mobile computing?

Question 57

There is no universally accepted definition of an operating system.