Computer Architecture
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Course Introduction
Computer Architecture explores the fundamental design principles and operational concepts of modern computer systems. Students will learn about the structure and function of computer components, including processors, memory hierarchies, input/output systems, and networks. Topics include instruction set architecture, data paths, pipelining, parallelism, memory management, and performance evaluation. The course bridges the gap between hardware and software, providing the analytical skills necessary to understand, evaluate, and optimize system performance within real-world constraints.
Recommended Textbook
Understanding Operating Systems 5th Edition by Ann McHoes
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16 Chapters
800 Verified Questions
800 Flashcards
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Chapter 1: Introducing Operating Systems
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Q1) The Memory Manager, the Interface Manager, the User Manager, and the File Manager are the basis of all operating systems.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q2) ____ include(s) every peripheral unit in the system such as printers, disk drives, CD/DVD drives, flash memory, keyboards, and so on.
A) The CPU
B) I/O Devices
C) Processors
D) Secondary components
Answer: B
Q3) Vacuum tube computers were used during the period of ____.
A) 1920s-1930s
B) 1935-1945
C) 1940-1955
D) 1945-1960
Answer: C
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Chapter 2: Memory Management: Early Systems
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Q1) After relocation and compaction, both the free list and the busy list are updated.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q2) To overlay is to transfer segments of a program from main memory into secondary storage for execution, so that two or more segments take turns occupying the same memory locations.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q3) A(n) ____ in the busy list occurs when a memory block between two other busy memory blocks is returned to the free list.
A) blank line
B) null entry
C) joined entry
D) empty entry
Answer: B
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Chapter 3: Memory Management: Virtual Memory
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Sample Questions
Q1) When there is an excessive amount of page swapping between main memory and secondary storage, the operation becomes inefficient, which is called ____.
A) excessive demand paging
B) hot swapping
C) thrashing
D) overswapping
Answer: C
Q2) If a particular demand paging configuration has 9 page interrupts out of 11 page requests, failure rate is ____.
A) 18%
B) 52%
C) 82%
D) 95%
Answer: C
Q3) Cache memory is a small high-speed memory unit that a processor can access less rapidly than main memory.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
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Page 5
Chapter 4: Processor Management
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Q1) The transition from one job or process status to another is initiated by either the Job Scheduler or the Process Scheduler.
A)True
B)False
Q2) ____ jobs are treated like all the others once they are in the system.
A) Low-priority
B) High-priority
C) Variable-priority
D) Moving-priority
Q3) When using priority scheduling, priorities are assigned to jobs by the owner of the job (the user).
A)True
B)False
Q4) The ____ is also called the high-level scheduler.
A) Process Scheduler
B) Job Scheduler
C) Program Scheduler
D) Thread Scheduler
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Page 6
Chapter 5: Process Management
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Q1) The scheme of ____ removes the possibility of a circular wait and therefore guarantees the removal of deadlocks.
A) hierarchical ordering
B) preemption
C) saving and restoring job state
D) requesting all resources before job run
Q2) ____ allows a resource to be held by a process as long as it is needed.
A) No preemption
B) Circular wait
C) Resource holding
D) Mutual exclusion
Q3) ____ showed how the four conditions can be modeled using directed graphs.
A) Havender
B) Holt
C) Dijkstra
D) Lane & Mooney
Q4) Starvation is the result of the liberal allocation of resources.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 6: Concurrent Processes
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Q1) In a symmetric configuration, processor scheduling is centralized.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Implied parallelism includes automatic detection by the compiler of instructions that can be performed in parallel.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Test-and-set is a single indivisible machine instruction known simply as TS and was introduced by IBM for its multiprocessing System 360/370 computers.
A)True
B)False
Q4) For many computational purposes, serial processing is sufficient; it's easy to implement and fast enough for most users.
A)True
B)False
Q5) The WAIT and SIGNAL operations must be issued at the same time.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 7: Device Management
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Q1) The universal serial bus (USB) controller acts as an interface between the operating system, device drivers, and applications and the devices that are attached via the USB host.
A)True
B)False
Q2) If the transport speed for a magnetic tape is 200 inches per second and the density is 1600 bpi, a total of ____ bytes can be transferred in one second.
A) 3,200
B) 32,000
C) 320,000
D) 3,200,000
Q3) Buffers are used extensively to better synchronize the movement of data between the relatively slow I/O devices and the very fast CPU.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Most RAID configurations require fewer disk drives, which decreases hardware costs. A)True
B)False
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Chapter 8: File Management
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Q1) A file descriptor usually contains only a file name and the directory name in which the file is located.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Directories are special files with listings of filenames and their attributes.
A)True
B)False
Q3) ____ are special files with listings of filenames and their attributes.
A) Databases
B) Directories
C) Programs
D) Data files
Q4) Many systems force users to have their files organized for fixed-length records if the records are to be accessed directly.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Examples of batch commands are CREATE, DELETE, RENAME, and COPY.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 9: Network Organization Concepts
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Q1) Circuit switching is a communication model in which a dedicated communication path is established between two hosts.
A)True
B)False
Q2) When using RIP the entire table is updated only when changes have occurred; this decreases internetwork traffic and positively affects the delivery of messages.
A)True
B)False
Q3) A ____ is typically a cluster of personal computers or workstations located in the same general area.
A) LAN
B) MAN
C) WAN
D) PAN
Q4) Addressing protocols are normally unrelated to the network topology and geographic location of each site.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 10: Management of Network Functions
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Q1) In process-based DO/S, special servers called ____ are responsible for accepting requests for service on the individual devices they control, processing each request fairly, providing service to the requestor, and returning to serve others.
A) kernels
B) guardians
C) spoolers
D) nodes
Q2) Networks were created initially to share data.
A)True
B)False
Q3) When a process reaches a point at which it needs service from an external source, such as an I/O request, it sends a message searching for the service; while it waits for a response, the processor server puts the process in a ____ state.
A) STOP
B) WAIT
C) BUSY
D) RESPONSE
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Chapter 11: Security and Ethics
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Q1) ____ is a form of social engineering whereby an intruder pretends to be a legitimate entity and contacts unwary users asking them to reconfirm their personal and/or financial information.
A) Spoofing
B) Phishing
C) Impersonating
D) Acting
Q2) The capability of a system to fulfill its mission, in a timely manner, in the presence of attacks, failures, or accidents is known as ____.
A) attack resistance
B) attack survivability
C) system recovery
D) system survivability
Q3) A disadvantage of encryption is ____.
A) It increases the system's overhead.
B) It is inconvenient for users to encrypt and decrypt data.
C) It is prohibitive in cost.
D) It is often ineffective.
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Chapter 12: System Management
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Q1) The formula used to calculate availability is ____.
A) MTBF * (MTBF - MTTR)
B) MTBF / (MTBF - MTTR)
C) MTBF * (MTBF + MTTR)
D) MTBF / (MTBF + MTTR)
Q2) By offering reduced rates during off hours, some users might be persuaded to run long jobs in batch mode inexpensively overnight instead of interactively during peak hours.
A)True
B)False
Q3) It is easy to measure system efficiency.
A)True
B)False
Q4) The Network Manager allows a network administrator to monitor the use of individual computers and shared hardware, and ensure compliance with software license agreements.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 13: Unix Operating System
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Q1) When using a terminal, as the user types in each character, it is collected in the ____ queue.
A) raw input
B) canonical input
C) character
D) buffer
Q2) UNIX can be mastered by novice programmers in a matter of weeks.
A)True
B)False
Q3) While Linux and UNIX are different operating systems, they strongly resemble each other in many ways.
A)True
B)False
Q4) The UNIX file management system organizes the disk into blocks of 1024 bytes each and divides the disk into four basic regions.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 14: Ms-Dos Operating System
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Q1) In RAM main memory, the interrupt vectors are located in high-addressable memory and the COMMAND.COM overlay is located in low-addressable memory.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Device channels are a part of MS-DOS.
A)True
B)False
Q3) If a block contains four paragraphs and is the first of two blocks, then its code would be ____.
A) 7700004h
B) 7700000004h
C) 90000000004h
D) 900000000030h
Q4) Interrupt handlers are a crucial part of the system.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Later versions of MS-DOS are not compatible with earlier versions.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 15: Windows Operating Systems
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Q1) The ____ policy determines when the pager copies a page from disk to memory.
A) placement
B) replacement
C) fetch
D) paging
Q2) The first Windows application was not a true operating system.
A)True
B)False
Q3) At the operating system level, file mapping is typically used for file caching, loading, and running executable programs.
A)True
B)False
Q4) An API called ____ interface is used to pass I/O requests structured in the SMB format to a remote computer.
A) MS-SMB
B) SMBAPI
C) NetAPI
D) NetBIOS
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Page 17
Chapter 16: Linux Operating System
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Q1) To keep track of free and busy pages, Linux uses a system of page tables.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Virtual memory in Linux is managed using a multiple-level table hierarchy, which accommodates both 64- and 32-bit architectures.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Fedora Core 2 was introduced in ____.
A) 2003
B) 2004
C) 2005
D) 2006
Q4) Virtual memory is implemented in Linux through demand paging.
A)True
B)False
Q5) When a process requests pages, Linux loads them into disk.
A)True
B)False
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