Input and Output Questions and Answers

Answer: C

Correct answer: MICR

Magnetic ink character recognition prints characters in ink containing iron oxide, which is magnetised before reading so that each character produces a distinctive waveform in the read head.

The advantage over optical reading is robustness: the characters can still be read through an overprinted signature, a stamp or a smudge, because it is the magnetic signal rather than the visible image that is sensed. Banks adopted it for cheque processing for exactly that reason.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Input Device

A mouse sends data to the computer - movement and button states - which makes it an input device by definition, the same category as the keyboard.

"Pointing device" is a true description too, but it names a subclass rather than the category the question asks for: the word "another" invites the classification that also covers the keyboard. Touch screens and trackballs belong to the same subclass, all of them input devices supplying position rather than characters.

Answer: C

Correct answer: Scanner

A scanner reads a document and sends the image into the computer, so it is an input device. Plotters, printers and monitors all present results to the user and are therefore outputs.

Answer: D

Correct answer: All of These

All three are ordinary parts of a program. Input is the data it operates on, output is what it produces, and functions are how its instructions are organised into reusable units.

The word "can" is doing the work: none is compulsory. A program may compute a constant result with no input, or produce no output at all, or be written as one block without functions. The option is correct because it asserts possibility rather than necessity.

Answer: D

Correct answer: Scroll

The wheel between the two buttons rolls the view up and down a document or page. Clicking and selecting are done with the buttons on either side of it.

Answer: C

Drum is the name of a plotter as well as a printer. Drum printers have a predefined set of characters and print one line at a time. Drum plotters is an ideal device for architects and others who need to generate high-precision hard copy graphics output of widely varying sizes.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Kiosks

A kiosk is an unattended interactive terminal placed in a public space - a cash machine, a ticket machine, an information point, a self-service checkout.

Its design follows from being unattended: a simplified interface for users with no training, hardened input devices such as touch screens and sealed keypads, and physical security for whatever it dispenses. The other options are not words. The term is borrowed from the small structures such machines were first placed in.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Keypad

A keypad has discrete keys and enters characters or digits; it cannot indicate an arbitrary position on the screen or trace a path, which is what point-and-draw means.

The other three all can. A mouse and a trackball report continuous movement, and a touch screen reports the position touched directly. Arrow keys move a cursor in fixed steps, which is why they serve as a poor substitute for a pointing device rather than as one.

Answer: D

Correct answer: Hardware

Hardware is the collective term for the physical parts of a computer, which includes every input and output device. Software is the set of programs, and a monitor is one output device rather than the class.

Answer: D

Correct answer: Graphical User Interface

A graphical user interface presents the system as windows, icons, menus and a pointer, so that operations are performed by direct manipulation rather than by typing commands.

The contrast is with the command line interface, which requires the user to know and type the command names. The graphical form is what made computers usable without training, and the pointing devices in this topic - mouse, trackball, touch screen - exist to serve it.