Computer Fundamentals Questions and Answers

Answer: D

Correct answer: Basic Input Output System

The BIOS is firmware held on the motherboard that initialises the hardware and hands control to the operating system loader. Modern machines have largely replaced it with UEFI, which serves the same purpose with fewer limits.

Answer: B

Correct answer: COPY

COPY takes a named file (or a group matched by wildcards) and writes it to another disk or directory. DISKCOPY duplicates a whole diskette track by track, RENAME only changes a name, and FORMAT erases the disk and prepares it for use.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Attributes

In a relational table each row is one record of the entity and each column is one attribute of it - a property such as name, date of birth or salary, with a fixed data type. The table as a whole represents the entity; the rows are its instances.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Analytical Engine

Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, designed from 1837, was the first design for a general-purpose mechanical computer: a mill for calculation, a store for numbers, and punched cards for both program and data - the elements of a modern machine. The abacus is a much older counting aid and was not designed by Babbage.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Digitizer

A digitizer converts information into digital form - a graphics tablet reporting the coordinates of a stylus, or a converter sampling an analogue signal into numbers. A modem converts between digital and analogue for transmission, and a mouse reports relative movement rather than digitising a source.

Answer: D

Correct answer: GFLOPS

Supercomputer speed is quoted in floating-point operations per second, and the practical scale runs from megaflops through gigaflops to teraflops and petaflops. Of the units offered, GFLOPS - \( 10^9 \) operations per second - is the largest and the one used for machines of this class.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Interrogation

Putting a question to a file from a terminal and receiving the matching records back is interrogation - querying the file rather than updating it. “Interactive” describes the general style of working at a terminal; interrogation is the particular act of asking the file a question.

Answer: C

Correct answer: Rotational delay

Reaching a sector takes two movements: the arm steps to the right track - the seek - and then the platter must turn until the sector passes under the head, which is the rotational delay or latency. On average it is half a revolution, so a 7200 rpm disk averages about \( \tfrac{1}{2} \times \tfrac{60}{7200} = 4.2 \) ms.

Answer: D

Correct answer: Accuracy of Data

Data integrity means that the data stored is accurate, consistent and complete, and stays so through every update - enforced with primary and foreign keys, type and range constraints, and transactions that either finish entirely or not at all. Keeping it secret is security, a separate concern.

Answer: A

Correct answer: cannot be made to execute in any area of storage other than the one designated for it

A non-relocatable program has its absolute addresses fixed when it is written or assembled, so it will only run at the one place in memory it was written for. A relocatable program carries the information a loader needs to adjust those addresses and can be placed wherever there is room.