Deck 2: Understanding Computer Systems and Programming Concepts

Question 1

Operating systems use ________, often provided by hardware manufacturers, to perform device-specific I/O operations.

A) controllers
B) device drivers
C) APIs
D) none of the above

Answer 1

device drivers

Question 2

From the user's point of view, plug-and-play devices that are added to the system typically are ready to use ________.

A) after restarting the computer
B) after manually configuring the operating system to identify the device
C) immediately, with little or no user interaction
D) after logging off and logging back onto the system

Answer 2

immediately, with little or no user interaction

Question 3

Which of the following hardware components are required to execute instructions in a general-purpose computer?

A) mainboard
B) processor
C) main memory
D) all of the above

Answer 3

all of the above

Question 4

The ________ chip, typically located on the mainboard, stores instructions for basic hardware initialization and management.

A) bootstrap
B) firmware
C) basic input/output system (BIOS)
D) device driver

Question 5

A(n) ________ is a piece of hardware that executes a set of machine-language instructions.

A) controller
B) bus
C) processor
D) motherboard

Question 6

Within a processor, the ________ loads instructions into high-speed memory (i.e., instruction registers), the ________ interprets the instructions and the ________ performs basic arithmetic and logical operations.

A) arithmetic and logic unit, instruction fetch unit, instruction decode unit
B) instruction fetch unit, arithmetic and logic unit, instruction decode unit
C) arithmetic and logic unit, instruction decode unit, instruction fetch unit
D) instruction fetch unit, instruction decode unit, arithmetic and logic unit

Question 7

Which type of memory provides the fastest data access?

A) registers
B) L1 cache
C) L2 cache
D) L3 cache

Question 8

What is the role of a computer system's clock generator?

A) It keeps track of the current date and time.
B) It provides power for the computer's internal clock.
C) It sets the frequency at which buses in the system transfer data.
D) Both a and c

Question 9

Which of the following lists memory types from highest to lowest speed?

A) secondary storage, main memory, L2 cache, registers
B) registers, L1 cache, secondary storage, main memory
C) registers, L2 cache, main memory, secondary storage
D) L1 cache, registers, main memory, secondary storage

Question 10

Data stored on ________ media (i.e., caches) vanishes when the computer is turned off, whereas ________ media (i.e., hard disks) preserve data when no power is present.

A) persistent, volatile
B) volatile, persistent
C) random-access, sequential-access
D) dynamic, static

Question 11

As manufacturers develop new memory technologies, the speed and capacity of memory tend to ________, while the cost per storage unit tends to ________.

A) increase, increase
B) increase, decrease
C) decrease, increase
D) decrease, decrease

Question 12

Why is hard disk storage much slower to access than main memory?

A) Accessing data on a hard disk requires mechanical movement of the read/write head.
B) Disks are located farther from a system's processors.
C) Disks must be access via a hardware controller.
D) all of the above

Question 13

Removable media such as CD-Rs generally have ________ capacity and ________ latency than other forms of storage such as hard disks.

A) higher, higher
B) higher, lower
C) lower, higher
D) lower, lower

Question 14

A(n) ________ is a bus that connects exactly two devices, and a(n) ________ is a bus that several devices share to perform I/O operations.

A) data bus, I/O channel
B) port, I/O channel
C) I/O channel, port
D) data bus, port

Question 15

To prevent signals from colliding on the bus, ________ prioritize(s) access to memory by I/O channels and processors.

A) a register
B) interrupts
C) the processor scheduler
D) a controller

Question 16

________ enables devices and controllers to transfer blocks of data to and from main memory directly.

A) Programmed I/O
B) Direct memory access (DMA)
C) Interrupt-driven I/O
D) Pipelining

Question 17

Which of the following devices is not considered a peripheral device?

A) printer
B) DVD drive
C) mainboard
D) hard disk drive

Question 18

Which of the following is not a serial interface?

A) USB
B) IEEE 1394 (FireWire or iLink)
C) SCSI
D) none of the above

Question 19

In what ways do processors support operating system services?

A) To create a secure system, processors often implement protection mechanisms by preventing processes from accessing privileged instructions.
B) Most processors provide mechanisms for memory protection and memory management.
C) Processors inform the operating system of events such as program execution errors and changes in device status
D) all of the above

Question 20

As computer architectures have evolved, the number of privileged instructions (i.e., those instructions not accessible in user mode) has ________.

A) increased
B) decreased
C) increased dramatically
D) remained the same

Question 21

Which of the following events would not lead to an exception being generated?

A) a hardware failure
B) a disk I/O completion
C) a logic error
D) a protection violation

Question 22

A(n) ________ periodically generates an interrupt that causes a processor to invoke the operating system.

A) clock generator
B) time-of-day clock
C) interval timer
D) none of the above

Question 23

Which of the following does not occur during bootstrapping?

A) low-level operating system components are loaded into memory
B) a login prompt is loaded
C) processor registers are initialized
D) the system prepares to run user applications

Question 24

Which of the following events does not occur when a plug-and-play device is attached to a computer?

A) The device uniquely identifies itself to the operating system.
B) The device indicates to the operating system the resources and services it requires to function properly.
C) The device identifies the driver it requires to function.
D) The device notifies the user that it is ready to use.

Question 25

A cache hit occurs when ________.

A) a referenced piece of data is present in cache memory.
B) a piece of data is removed from the cache.
C) a referenced piece of data is not present in cache memory.
D) a piece of data is placed in cache memory.

Question 26

________ improve system performance by temporarily storing data during transfers between devices or processes that operate at different speeds.

A) Caches
B) Controllers
C) Buffers
D) Registers

Question 27

Computer languages can be classified as one of three types. Which of the following is not one of these types?

A) Assembly languages
B) High-level languages
C) Microcode languages
D) Machine languages

Question 28

Specifying elementary computer operations with English-like abbreviations forms the basis of ________ languages.

A) Assembly languages
B) High-level languages
C) Mid-level languages
D) Machine languages

Question 29

Translator programs called ________ convert high-level language programs into machine language.

A) assemblers
B) compilers
C) interpreters
D) none of the above

Question 30

________ are programs that directly execute source code or code that has been reduced to low-level language but not machine code.

A) assemblers
B) compilers
C) interpreters
D) none of the above

Question 31

________, a programming language designed for teaching structured programming in academic environments, was developed by Professor Nicklaus Wirth in 1971.

A) C
B) Fortran
C) COBOL
D) Pascal

Question 32

The _______ programming language facilitated concurrent programming.

A) Fortran
B) COBOL
C) Pascal
D) Ada

Question 33

Objects have ________, such as color, size and weight; and they perform ________, such as moving, sleeping or drawing.

A) properties, actions
B) properties, attributes
C) methods, actions
D) actions, properties

Question 34

Fortran, Pascal, BASIC and C are all forms of ________.

A) concurrent programming languages
B) procedural programming languages
C) object-oriented programming languages
D) none of the above

Question 35

The Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) is an example of a(n):

A) GUI
B) API
C) protocol suite
D) device driver

Question 36

A compiler accepts ________ code, written in a high-level language, and returns executable ________ code that contains machine-language instructions.

A) source, object
B) object, source
C) assembly, object
D) assembly, source

Question 37

What is the role of the lexical analyzer in a compiler?

A) The lexical analyzer groups tokens in a program's source code into syntactically correct statements.
B) The lexical analyzer separates the source code into tokens (e.g., keywords, identifiers, operators and punctuation).
C) The lexical analyzer converts syntactic structures into instructions.
D) The lexical analyzer attempts to optimize the efficiency of the code.

Question 38

________ is the process of integrating the various modules referenced by a program into a single executable unit.

A) Parsing
B) Loading
C) Linking
D) Compiling

Question 39

Input to the linker can include which of the following items?

A) object modules
B) load modules
C) control statements
D) all of the above

Question 40

Which of the following statements about dynamic linking is false?

A) References to external functions are not resolved until a process issues calls to the functions.
B) A dynamically linked program must be relinked when a library that is uses is modified.
C) Shared library code can be stored separately from other program code.
D) Dynamic linking saves space on secondary storage, as only a single copy of a shared library must be stored.

Question 41

________ occurs when the loader places instructions and data units at particular memory addresses.

A) Absolute loading
B) Relocatable loading
C) Memory binding
D) Address binding

Question 42

Which of the following represents a correct sequence of events to transform software written in a high-level language to an executable program?

A) compiling, linking, loading
B) linking, loading, compiling
C) linking, compiling, loading
D) compiling, loading, linking

Question 43

Firmware consists of executable instructions, written using ________ and stored in persistent memory that is attached to a particular ________.

A) microprogramming, process
B) concurrent programming, hardware device
C) microprogramming, hardware device
D) concurrent programming, process

Question 44

Which of the following is a true statement about middleware?

A) Middleware enables communication between computers in distributed systems.
B) Middleware permits applications to run on heterogeneous computer platforms.
C) Middleware simplifies application development, as developers do not need to know the implementation details of the middleware.
D) all of the above

Question 45

An ODBC driver is a piece of middleware that:

A) hides the details of connecting an application to databases of several common database formats.
B) handles retrieving information from a database as requested by an application.
C) both a and b
D) neither a nor b