Practice Questions

Question 1

1. Which bus carries the address of the location for the required data?
   a) Control Bus
   b) Omnibus
   c) Data Bus
   d) Address Bus

Answer 1

Address Bus

Question 2

2. Which bus is only used to allow the CPU access to main memory and various peripheral chips as it is only unidirectional?

a) Address Bus
b) Control Bus
c) Data Bus
d) Front Side Bus

Answer 2

a) Address Bus

Question 3

3. Which bus can transfer data in both directions (bidirectional), outwards for a write operation and inwards for a read operation?

a) Address Bus
b) Control Bus
c) Data Bus
d) Parallel

Answer 3

C) Data Bus

Question 4

4. The size of the address bus affects the amount of main memory or I/O devices offered. If there were 16 lines available what would be the maximum number of different addresses available?
   a) 16
   b) 256
   c) 1024
   d) 65536

Answer 4

D) 65536

Question 5

5. Which bus is one way only (unidirectional) and is used to tell the main memory which address is to be used?

a) Control Bus
b) Address Bus
c) Memory Bus
d) Data Bus

Answer 5

B) Address bus

Question 6

6. An 8 bit bus can represent how many unique values.

a) 8
b) 16
c) 32
d) 256

Answer 6

D) 256

Question 7

7. If the wire is low (no electricity flowing) then the memory is read. If the wire is high (with electricity flowing) then the memory is written.
   Which bus has been described here?

a) Control Bus
b) Data Bus
c) Address Bus
d) USB

Answer 7

a) Control Bus

Question 8

1. What of the following are the address bus used for?

a) Find a location in memory to which data will be written
b) Find an area of memory from which data will be read
c) Find an area of the hard disk from which data will be read
d) Find a location of the hard disk to which data will be written

(2 Answers)

Answer 8

a) Find a location in memory to which data will be written

b) Find an area of memory from which data will be read

Question 9

2. What is the function of utility software?
   (2 Answers)
   a) To reduce the function of the operating system
   b) Utility software enhances the operating system
   c) To manage on-board devices
   d) Utility software provides tools not present in the operating system

Answer 9

b) Utility software enhances the operating system

d) Utility software provides tools not present in the operating system

Question 10

3. What is the binary result and the decimal equivalent of the logical operation 10111100 AND 01110110? (2 Answers)

a) 00110000
b) 48
c) 00110100
d) 52

Answer 10

c) 00110100

d) 52

Question 11

4. Which two of these are characteristics of SRAM? (2 answers)

a) Is continually refreshed
b) Is volatile
c) Is used as main memory
d) Used as Cache

Answer 11

b) Is volatile

d) Used as Cache

Question 12

5. Which two of these are characteristics of the control bus?

a) Carries the signals concerning the timing of various operations such as memory read
b) Carries the address of the location for the required data
c) Carries the required data
d) Carries the signals concerning the timing of various operations such as memory write

Answer 12

a) Carries the signals concerning the timing of various operations such as memory read

d) Carries the signals concerning the timing of various operations such as memory write

Question 13

6. Which two of these are characteristics of the address bus?

a) Is bi-directional
b) Carries the address of the location for the required data.
c) Is unidirectional
d) Carries the actual data.

Answer 13

b) Carries the address of the location for the required data.

c) Is unidirectional

Question 14

7. Which two of these are characteristics of the address bus?

a) An address bus is a series of lines connecting two or more devices that is used to specify a physical address
b) The width of the address bus determines the amount of memory in a system that can be addressed.
c) Holds the actual data to be written (sent) to memory from CPU
d) Holds the information that is has been read (taken) from memory (instruction, result or calculation)

Answer 14

a) An address bus is a series of lines connecting two or more devices that is used to specify a physical address

b) The width of the address bus determines the amount of memory in a system that can be addressed.

Question 15

8. Which two of these are characteristics of the data bus?

a) Holds the actual data to be written (sent) to memory from CPU
b) Hold the information that is has been read (taken) from memory (instruction, result or calculation)
c) Is unidirectional
d) Situated between the hard drive & BIOS

Answer 15

a) Holds the actual data to be written (sent) to memory from CPU

b) Hold the information that is has been read (taken) from memory (instruction, result or calculation)

Question 16

9. Which two of these are characteristics of the control bus?

a) Holds the actual data to be written (sent) to memory from CPU
b) If the wire is high (with electricity flowing) then the memory is written to (write operation).
c) Hold the information that is has been read (taken) from memory (instruction, result or calculation)
d) If the wire is low (no electricity flowing) then the memory is read from (read operation)

Answer 16

b) If the wire is high (with electricity flowing) then the memory is written to (write operation).

d) If the wire is low (no electricity flowing) then the memory is read from (read operation)

Question 17

10. Which two of these are characteristics of a non maskable interrupt?

a) An NMI is often used when response time is critical an example here is the handling of special cases like system resets.
b) Cannot be ignored by the CPU
c) Will be ignored by the CPU
d) Is placed in a queue when invoked

Answer 17

a) An NMI is often used when response time is critical an example here is the handling of special cases like system resets.

b) Cannot be ignored by the CPU

Question 18

11. Which two of these are characteristics of DRAM?

a) Used as Cache
b) More expensive than SRAM
c) Most common type of memory used today as it is cheap to make
d) Used as main memory

Answer 18

c) Most common type of memory used today as it is cheap to make

d) Used as main memory

Question 19

12. Which two of these are characteristics of SRAM?

a) Retains its contents as long as electrical power is applied to the chip
b) Doesn’t need refreshed as it works as long as power is supplied to the circuit
c) Is non- volatile
d) Is used as main memory

Answer 19

a) Retains its contents as long as electrical power is applied to the chip

b) Doesn’t need refreshed as it works as long as power is supplied to the circuit

Question 20

1. Which one of these will cause your PC to run slow?

a) Hard Disk Defragmentation
b) Reducing the number of start-up processes
c) Hard Disk Fragmentation
d) Installing more RAM

Answer 20

c) Hard Disk Fragmentation

Question 21

2. You have just recently installed an automatic update which has resulted in
   poor system performance. What should you do to try and rectify the situation?

a) Install more memory
b) Release and renew your IP address
c) Uninstall the memory you just installed
d) Roll back the system

Answer 21

d) Roll back the system

Question 22

3. Which one of these will cause your PC to run faster?

a) Increasing the swap file size
b) Increasing the number of processes you can run from startup
c) Decreasing the swap file size
d) Decreasing memory

Answer 22

c) Decreasing the swap file size

Question 23

4. Your PC runs very slowly and in order to make your system run faster, you
   have recently performed an upgrade by installing a new graphics card that
   uses DMA. Which of these is not a benefit of the installation and is the odd one
   out?

a) As DMA bypasses the CPU — data can be moved without CPU intervention
b) DMA controller organises the transfer of data
c) CPU is free to carry out other tasks
d) As DMA interacts with the CPU — data can be moved with constant CPU
intervention

Answer 23

d) As DMA interacts with the CPU — data can be moved with constant CPU
intervention

Question 24

5. Why does fragmentation slow a PC down?

a) Slower HDD speed
b) Slower memory access
c) Slower read/write operations
d) Faster read/write operations

Answer 24

c) Slower read/write operations

Question 25

6. Which of these would not see an improvement in system performance? a) More processes run from startup b) Faster CPU c) More Memory d) Increased swap file size

Answer 25

a) More processes run from startup

Question 26

7. Which one of these can improve the performance of your computer by allowing more main memory to be accessed? a) Decreased Address Bus width b) Increased Address Bus width c) Increased Control Bus width d) Increased Bus width

Answer 26

b) Increased Address Bus width

Question 27

8. Which one of these can improve the performance of your computer? a) Switching off automatic updates b) Updating your antivirus program by setting automatic updates c) Throttling the CPU d) Reducing the swap file size

Answer 27

b) Updating your antivirus program by setting automatic updates

Question 28

9. A modern PC will have to process large amounts of data quickly. Which one of these will not support this? a) Larger data bus b) Smaller data bus c) More memory d) Faster processor

Answer 28

b) Smaller data bus

Question 29

10. Which one of these will not improve the performance of your computer? z a) Make the swap file size smaller b) Run Defrag c) Increase the swap file size d) Make swap file size dynamic

Answer 29

c) Increase the swap file size.