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Software Engineering

Who is regarded as the 'Father of the Computer'?

Which characteristic means a computer performs repetitive tasks without fatigue?

The stored-program concept was introduced with which machine?

Which unit of the CPU performs arithmetic and logical operations?

Second-generation computers used which technology?

Which type of computer combines features of analog and digital computers?

Which is the fastest and most powerful category of computer?

Integrated Circuits (ICs) characterize which generation of computers?

A computer is said to have 'no IQ' because it:

Which unit directs and coordinates the operations of all other units?

Which type of memory loses its content when power is switched off?

Which ROM type is erased using ultraviolet light?

Magnetic tape is an example of which access method?

Which storage device uses a laser beam to read and write data?

Which of the following is non-volatile memory?

EEPROM can be erased:

A hard disk provides which type of data access?

Which device is a solid-state secondary storage device with no moving parts?

PROM stands for:

Compared to secondary storage, primary storage is generally:

Which of the following is an example of system software?

Which programming language level uses only 0s and 1s?

Assembly language programs require which translator to run?

Which is the main advantage of a high-level language?

Which software category includes antivirus and disk cleanup tools?

Which application software is used to organize data in rows and columns with formulas?

A translator that converts an entire high-level program into machine code before execution is a:

Which is an example of DBMS software?

Software that instructs hardware and provides a platform for other programs to run is called:

Which is a disadvantage of machine language?

How many layers does the OSI reference model have?

Which OSI layer is responsible for logical addressing and routing?

The TCP/IP model condenses the OSI model into how many layers?

Which device forwards data based only on broadcasting to all ports, with no intelligence?

A Router operates at which layer of the OSI model?

Which of the following is a guided transmission medium?

A firewall is primarily used to:

In asymmetric cryptography, encryption and decryption use:

Which OSI layer deals with framing and MAC addressing?

A Denial of Service (DoS) attack primarily aims to:

Which communication mode allows data to flow in both directions but not simultaneously?

A modem's main function is to:

Which network type covers an area as large as a country or continent?

In which LAN topology are all devices connected to a single central cable?

Which topology becomes completely non-functional if the central hub fails?

A telephone conversation is an example of which communication mode?

Which topology connects every node to every other node directly?

Bandwidth of a communication channel refers to:

FTP is a protocol primarily used for:

A PAN (Personal Area Network) typically covers:

In the data storage hierarchy, which is the smallest unit?

A group of 8 bits is commonly called a:

A group of related fields is called a:

Which file holds relatively permanent data that is updated periodically?

Which data organization method allows both sequential and direct access using an index?

Which file type contains day-to-day data used to update the master file?

A group of related records is called a:

Which file utility combines two sorted files into one sorted file?

A backup file is primarily used for:

Which data organization method offers the fastest access to any individual record?

An Abstract Data Type (ADT) is defined primarily by its:

Which of the following is NOT one of the three basic structured-programming control structures?

The meaning of a syntactically correct statement is called its:

Every recursive function must have a:

In C, a string is terminated by which character?

The RAM model of computation assumes each elementary operation takes:

Which communication method is typical of loosely coupled (distributed) systems?

A monitor differs from a semaphore mainly because a monitor:

The PRAM model assumes multiple processors:

A 2-D array element is typically accessed using:

Which exception type must be declared or handled at compile time in Java?

Which block always executes, whether or not an exception was thrown?

Which keyword is used to explicitly raise an exception?

A NullPointerException in Java is an example of a(n):

An OutOfMemoryError is typically classified as a(n):

In Python, exceptions are handled using try together with which keyword?

Event-driven programming primarily structures code around:

Why is exception handling especially important when working with large databases?

Which language does NOT provide a built-in 'finally' block (relying instead on RAII for cleanup)?

The try block is used to:

If ptr is a pointer to int and int size is 4 bytes, what does ptr+1 do?

The expression arr[i] is equivalent to which pointer expression?

In a union, how much memory is allocated?

Which operator is used to access a structure's member through a pointer to that structure?

Passing a structure to a function by reference (pointer) is generally preferred for large structures because it:

Which function is used to move the file pointer to a specific position for random access?

Which mode opens a file for appending data at its end?

fread() and fwrite() are primarily used for:

In C, all members of a structure:

Which function reports the current position of the file pointer?

A class is best described as a:

Function overloading is an example of which kind of polymorphism?

Which access specifier allows access from the class itself and its derived classes only?

Method overriding, using virtual functions, is resolved:

Encapsulation refers to:

Which special member function has the same name as the class and no return type?

In C++, dynamically allocated memory for an object must be released using:

The 'this' pointer inside a non-static member function refers to:

A static data member of a class:

A friend function of a class can:

Which C++ stream class is used specifically for reading from a file?

Which stream state flag indicates that the end of a file has been reached?

cin is a predefined object of which class?

Which header defines manipulators like setw() and setprecision()?

Which functions perform unformatted (raw) I/O in C++ streams?

Which function moves the 'get' pointer to a specific position in a file, enabling random access?

Which base class do istream and ostream derive from?

Which manipulator inserts a newline and flushes the output buffer?

Which function reports the current position of the 'put' pointer in a file stream?

To reset a stream's error state flags after an error, which function is used?

Which keyword pair is used to declare a function template in C++?

The process of the compiler generating a specific version of a template for an actual data type is called:

When both a template and a non-template function match a call equally well, the compiler generally prefers:

A class template such as Stack<T> allows creation of:

Member functions of a class template are defined outside the class using which syntax pattern?

Which STL component stores collections of objects, such as vector or map?

Which STL component behaves like a generalized pointer used to traverse a container?

Which of these is an STL algorithm rather than a container?

The STL achieves type-independence mainly through the use of:

A function template allows:

When an interrupt occurs, the CPU transfers execution to:

The 8086 microprocessor operates in which two modes?

Assembly language source code is translated to machine code by:

The 8255 Programmable Peripheral Interface (PPI) provides which type of interface?

RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) architecture is characterized by:

What does the Address Generation Unit (AGU) in a CPU do?

Pipelining in CPU design is also known as:

How many signal wires does the I²C (Inter-Integrated Circuit) bus use?

A microprocessor fetches its next instruction from:

In an SPI bus running at 5 MHz with 8-bit frames, what is the time taken per bit?

Which circuit inside the CPU performs arithmetic and logical operations?

In floating-point multiplication, the correct sequence of operations is:

The 8085 microprocessor has a data bus width of:

How much memory can the 8085 address with its 16-bit address bus?

The 8086 microprocessor uses a 20-bit address bus, allowing it to address:

Which 8086 functional unit is responsible for fetching instructions and managing the bus?

Which 8085 addressing mode uses a register pair (e.g. HL) to hold the operand's address?

A COM program is limited in size to:

Which tool combines object modules and resolves cross-references into a single executable?

A two-pass assembler builds a symbol table during:

A one-pass assembler resolves forward references using:

Which component loads an executable program into memory and starts its execution?

Which level of the memory hierarchy is the fastest and smallest?

In memory-mapped I/O, I/O devices are accessed using:

The Intel 8255 PPI provides how many programmable 8-bit ports?

Which 8255 mode provides a bidirectional data bus (Port A only)?

Synchronous transmission differs from asynchronous transmission mainly because it:

Which signal pair is used by a DMA controller to request and receive control of the system bus from the CPU?

The main benefit of DMA over programmed data transfer is that it:

In cycle-stealing DMA mode, the DMA controller:

A serial interface transmits data:

RS-232 is an example of a:

Which 8085 interrupt has the highest priority and cannot be masked?

How many entries does the 8086 Interrupt Vector Table contain?

Pseudo-parallelism refers to:

According to Flynn's classification, a GPU applying one instruction across many data elements is an example of:

A traditional single-processor computer belongs to which Flynn class?

Multiple threads of the same process sharing memory is an example of parallelism at which level?

Which of the following is NOT one of the four necessary conditions for deadlock?

A situation where each process in a set waits indefinitely for a resource held by another process in the same set is called:

Which is a typical feature of a modern operating system?

The ISR (Interrupt Service Routine) is executed:

Which control unit design uses fixed combinational logic circuits to generate control signals?

Microprogrammed control stores its control signals as:

Which microinstruction format uses one bit per control signal, requiring little or no decoding?

An instruction format that relies entirely on a stack, with operands implied, is called:

Which addressing mode specifies the operand's memory address directly within the instruction?

RISC architectures are generally characterized by:

Which of the following is a typical CISC characteristic?

Pipelining improves CPU performance mainly by:

A pipeline hazard caused by a branch instruction changing the flow of execution is called a:

Which unit of the CPU performs arithmetic and logical operations on data?

Addition and subtraction in computer arithmetic are typically performed using:

Which algorithm is a classic technique for binary multiplication?

Cache memory improves performance mainly by exploiting:

In which cache mapping scheme can a memory block be placed in any cache line?

Which cache replacement algorithm evicts the block that has not been used for the longest time?

Which write policy updates both the cache and main memory at the same time?

Compared to write-through, write-back is generally:

Which type of memory is non-volatile?

A 'unified' cache refers to a cache that:

'Composing memory' refers to:

Which I/O transfer mode requires the CPU to continuously poll the device's status?

Which I/O mode involves the least CPU involvement during the actual data transfer?

In interrupt-driven I/O, the CPU is notified that a device is ready by:

The main benefit of a multiprocessor system is:

Which interconnection structure connects all processors and memory modules to a single shared communication path?

Which interconnection structure offers the highest performance by connecting every processor to every memory module directly, but at high cost?

A multistage network is best described as:

Processors that do not share memory typically communicate using:

Which of the following is a synchronization primitive used to coordinate access to shared resources?

An I/O module's role includes all of the following EXCEPT:

Which property requires that an algorithm must terminate after a finite number of steps?

The RAM model of computation assumes each elementary operation takes:

Which case describes the maximum running time of an algorithm over all inputs of size n?

Which asymptotic notation represents an upper bound on an algorithm's growth rate?

Big-Theta notation is used when an algorithm's running time is:

A recurrence relation such as T(n) = 2T(n/2) + n typically describes the running time of which kind of algorithm?

Which method for solving recurrences involves guessing a solution and proving it by induction?

The Master Theorem applies to recurrences of the form:

In the recursion tree method, the total running time is obtained by:

Which of these best describes 'space complexity'?

Which of the following is NOT one of the three steps of divide and conquer?

Binary Search requires the input array to be:

The time complexity of Binary Search is:

Merge Sort's worst-case time complexity is:

Quick Sort's worst-case time complexity of O(n²) typically occurs when:

Randomized Quick Sort improves reliability mainly by:

In a Max-Heap, the relationship between a parent node and its children is:

Heap Sort's overall time complexity is:

Which algorithm guarantees finding the i-th order statistic in worst-case linear time?

What is the median of a set of numbers?

Dynamic Programming is applicable to a problem mainly when it exhibits:

Unlike Dynamic Programming, a Greedy algorithm:

The main advantage of Dynamic Programming over plain recursion is that DP:

The Matrix Chain Multiplication problem aims to:

The Edit Distance (String Editing) problem computes the minimum number of which operations to convert one string into another?

The time complexity of the 0/1 Knapsack DP solution, for n items and capacity W, is:

The Floyd-Warshall algorithm is used to find:

The time complexity of the Floyd-Warshall algorithm is:

Solving the Travelling Salesman Problem with DP (Held-Karp/bitmasking) has time complexity:

Memoization is best described as:

Which basic loader function adjusts address-dependent parts of a program so it can run at a different memory location than originally assumed?

An Absolute Loader loads a program:

A Bootstrap Loader is typically used to:

The External Symbol Table (ESTAB) used by a linking loader records:

Automatic Library Search is a feature that allows the loader to:

A Linkage Editor differs from a dynamic linker mainly because it:

Dynamic linking postpones linking of external references until:

A key advantage of dynamic linking over static linking (via a linkage editor) is that it:

Which linker combines .OBJ files into a .EXE file in the MS-DOS environment?

SunOS's dynamic linking mechanism relies on which file type?

A macro is best described as:

Which macro-processor table stores the actual text/body of each macro's definition?

The Argument List Array (ALA) is used to:

Generation of unique labels in macro expansion is needed mainly to:

Keyword macro parameters differ from positional parameters because they:

Conditional macro expansion allows a macro to:

A macro processor that can expand a macro which itself invokes another macro (or itself) supports:

A general-purpose macro processor is characterized by being:

Which software provides the macro processing used in ANSI C, via directives like #define?

MASM refers to:

Which protocol is connection-oriented and guarantees reliable, ordered delivery?

Which protocol offers low overhead but no guarantee of delivery or ordering?

SCTP is notable for supporting:

The TCP connection setup process is commonly known as the:

Which socket function marks a socket as ready to accept incoming connections?

Which function converts a 16-bit value from host byte order to network byte order?

A concurrent server typically handles multiple clients by:

Which I/O model uses select()/poll() to monitor multiple sockets from a single thread?

In which I/O model does the kernel perform the entire operation, including copying data, before notifying the process?

Winsock, the Windows Sockets API, is implemented as a:

The activation function used in a Hopfield Network is:

Machine learning using labelled training data (input-output pairs) is called:

In an AI agent, which component carries out actions on the environment?

Which UML diagram describes the vocabulary (classes and relationships) of a system?

To translate a circle to a new position in 2D graphics, what must be translated?

In 2D scaling, if both scale factors sx < 1 and sy < 1, the object:

How many distinct reflection planes exist in 3D space?

The complexity of an Artificial Neural Network primarily depends on:

A crossword-puzzle solving environment is best described as:

In an expert system, the component that stores all facts, rules, and domain knowledge is the:

MYCIN, the medical expert system, used how many rules and which reasoning strategy?

Which concept is central to Fuzzy Logic?

The A* search algorithm is NOT admissible when:

Greedy Best-First Search selects the next node to expand based on:

The key components of a search problem in AI are:

The transformation matrix [[1,0,0],[0,5,0],[0,0,2]] represents:

DDA stands for:

The OOAD methodology that features macro and micro development processes is:

The NLP processing pipeline in correct order is:

The Turing Test extension that requires a robot to interact physically with the world is:

A stack follows which principle?

A queue follows which principle?

Which traversal of a Binary Search Tree gives elements in sorted order?

Big-O notation describes the ____ of an algorithm.

In a doubly linked list, each node has:

An AVL tree is a:

The postfix expression for (A + B) is:

Stacks are commonly used to evaluate:

In a Binary Search Tree, for any node, the left child is:

Which data structure provides O(1) random access by index?

The average time complexity of merge sort is:

Binary search requires the data to be:

BFS (Breadth-First Search) is implemented using a:

DFS (Depth-First Search) typically uses a:

Which algorithm finds the shortest path from a source in a weighted graph with non-negative weights?

Prim's and Kruskal's algorithms are used to find a:

The average-case time complexity of a well-designed hash table lookup is:

When two keys map to the same hash index, it is called a:

The worst-case time complexity of quick sort is:

Topological sorting can be applied only to a:

A key that uniquely identifies each row and cannot be NULL is the:

Which normal form removes transitive dependencies?

The SQL command SELECT belongs to which category?

CREATE, ALTER, and DROP are examples of:

A foreign key is used to:

A table is in 1NF if all its attribute values are:

An entity that cannot be uniquely identified by its own attributes is a:

A virtual table derived from a query is called a:

GRANT and REVOKE are part of which SQL category?

In BCNF, every determinant must be a:

The ACID properties of a transaction are:

The 'all-or-nothing' property of a transaction is:

Once a transaction commits, its changes persist even after a crash. This is:

Two-Phase Locking (2PL) is used to ensure:

A situation where two transactions wait indefinitely for each other's locks is:

In log-based recovery, reapplying committed transactions is called:

Which lock allows multiple transactions to read simultaneously?

A checkpoint in recovery is used to:

Isolation in ACID ensures that:

UNDO operation in recovery is applied to:

A process is best defined as:

Which scheduling algorithm is preemptive and uses a time quantum?

The core component of an operating system is the:

Which structure stores all information about a process?

A condition where the result depends on the timing of concurrent processes is a:

A binary semaphore is also called a:

Which scheduling algorithm gives the minimum average waiting time?

A lightweight unit of execution that shares memory with others in the same process is a:

The interface through which a program requests OS services is the:

The Dining Philosophers problem illustrates issues of:

Dividing memory into fixed-size pages and frames is called:

A page fault occurs when:

Which page replacement algorithm replaces the page not used for the longest time?

Wasted space inside an allocated memory block is called:

Virtual memory is most commonly implemented using:

The theoretically optimal page replacement algorithm replaces the page:

FIFO page replacement may suffer from:

Moving a process between main memory and disk is called:

Which file allocation method stores file blocks in consecutive disk locations?

External fragmentation can be reduced by:

Which entity has its own memory space, program counter, and code segment?

An OS that groups similar jobs together for batch execution is a:

In DBMS, which component is responsible for maintaining concurrency control?

Which DBMS component estimates and minimises the cost of query execution?

A semaphore in OS represents:

BFS (Breadth-First Search) uses which data structure?

DFS (Depth-First Search) uses which data structure (or property)?

For an AVL tree with 7 nodes, what is the maximum possible height?

Which array correctly represents a min-heap?

The time complexity of the enqueue operation in a queue implemented with a linked list is:

The average time complexity of sequential (linear) search is:

The basic classification of computer memory is:

Which SDLC model is best described as sequential and rigid?

Response time and scalability are examples of:

A Software Requirements Specification (SRS) document:

Which process model is primarily driven by risk analysis?

In the V-Model, each development phase is paired with a corresponding:

Unlike hardware, software:

'The system shall authenticate users' is an example of a:

The prototype model in software development is used to:

Agile software development emphasises:

Which is the FIRST step in the requirements engineering process?

Good software design aims for:

Cohesion measures the:

Coupling measures the:

The design principle of hiding module internals from other modules is called:

Which type of cohesion is considered the BEST (highest)?

Which type of coupling is considered the WORST?

Dividing software into smaller, independent, manageable units is called:

In the Client-Server architecture: