Computer Fundamentals Questions and Answers

Answer: B

Correct answer: Plotter

A plotter draws by moving a pen (or the paper) along continuous paths, so it produces true line drawings - maps, engineering drawings and architectural plans - at any size the paper allows. A printer builds the same picture out of dots.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Computer program

A computer program is the list of coded instructions the machine executes. An algorithm is the method it implements, expressed independently of any language, and a flowchart is a picture of that method - neither can be run.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Pulse code modulation

PCM converts an analogue waveform to digital in three steps: the signal is sampled at a fixed rate, each sample is quantised to the nearest of a set of levels, and the level is written as a binary number. Sampling above twice the highest frequency present - the Nyquist rate - allows the original to be reconstructed; telephone speech is sampled at 8 kHz with 8 bits, giving 64 kbps.

Answer: A

Correct answer: O.M.R

Optical mark recognition shines light on a form and detects where the reflectance is reduced by a pencil mark, so the position of each filled bubble is read as an answer. It is how examination answer sheets and ballot forms are counted, and it reads marks rather than shapes, which is what distinguishes it from OCR.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Extremely high reliability

Putting a whole circuit on one chip removes the soldered joints and connections between separate components, and it is those interconnections that fail most often. The result is a very large gain in reliability - and lower cost, smaller size and less power follow from the same integration, but they are consequences rather than the principal advantage.

Answer: A

Correct answer: COBOL

A COBOL program is written in four divisions in a fixed order: IDENTIFICATION, ENVIRONMENT, DATA and PROCEDURE. The Data Division, third of the four, declares every file and working-storage item the program uses before the Procedure Division operates on them.

Answer: C

Correct answer: LOGO

Seymour Papert, with Wally Feurzeig and Cynthia Solomon, devised LOGO in 1967 to teach children programming. Its best-known feature is turtle graphics, where simple commands drive a pointer that draws as it moves, so geometry can be explored by writing procedures.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Interactive computer

In interactive working the user types at a keyboard, the machine responds at once, and the next entry depends on that response - a conversation. Batch processing accepts a job and returns results later with no dialogue at all, and time sharing describes how the processor is divided between users rather than the style of the exchange.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Dump

A dump writes out the contents of memory, or of some part of the machine, so that its state can be examined - usually after a failure, so the cause can be traced. The word describes emptying the contents out for inspection, not altering them.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Frame

On a data link the unit that travels on the wire is a frame: the network-layer packet wrapped in a header carrying the hardware addresses of the two ends and a trailer carrying a checksum. The packet is the contents; the frame is the envelope the link layer puts round it.