Computer Internet Questions and Answers

Answer: A

Correct answer: Digital subscriber line (DSL)

DSL uses the same copper pair as the telephone but transmits at frequencies above the voice band, so it is far faster than a dial-up modem and the line remains usable for calls. Cable and fibre are faster still but do not use the phone line.

Answer: D

Correct answer: Downloading a document

Bringing a file to your machine is downloading; sending one away from it is uploading. The direction is what the two words distinguish.

Answer: C

Correct answer: Packet

Data to be sent is divided into packets, each carrying the message content together with the addressing and control information the network needs. A header and trailer are parts of a packet rather than the whole.

Answer: C

Correct answer: Layer 4

Acknowledgements, sequence numbers and flow control are how a connection is made reliable, and reliability is the transport layer's responsibility - layer 4.

Answer: D

Correct answer: The Internet is the network; the Web is one service running on it

The Internet is the global network of interconnected computers - the physical and logical infrastructure. The World Wide Web is one service carried on it: a system of documents linked by hyperlinks, transferred by HTTP and identified by URLs. The distinction is easily shown by what else the Internet carries. Email, file transfer, video streaming, online games, voice calls and instant messaging all run over the Internet without being part of the Web at all. Email in particular is far older than the Web. The Internet has its origins in ARPANET in 1969 and became a network of networks through the adoption of TCP/IP in 1983. The Web was invented by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN around 1989 and released publicly in 1991. So the Internet is the road system and the Web is one kind of traffic on it. Using the two words interchangeably is common but imprecise.

Answer: A

Correct answer: DHCP

DHCP - Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol - leases an address to a host when it joins the network, along with the gateway and DNS settings it needs. IP carries the packets once the address is assigned.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Power cord

Connectivity is what joins a device to the resources it needs, in the way a power cord joins it to the supply - the point of the comparison is that both are links rather than things in themselves. The internet is one thing you may connect to, and a floppy disk and data are not connections at all.

Answer: D

Correct answer: It forwards data between different networks along the best available path

A router connects different networks and forwards packets between them, choosing a path using a routing table and the destination IP address. It is what makes an internet of networks possible. The other devices in the same family operate at different layers, and the set is worth learning together. A hub repeats an incoming signal to every port indiscriminately - obsolete and wasteful. A switch forwards a frame only to the port where its destination MAC address lives, which is why switched networks are far more efficient. A repeater amplifies a signal to extend range, the second option here. A modem converts between digital and analogue for transmission over a telephone or cable line, the third. A home router usually combines several of these - router, switch, wireless access point and often modem - in one box, which is why the term is used loosely.

Answer: D

Correct answer: Google

Gmail is Google's mail service, launched in 2004.

Answer: D

Correct answer: Simplex

Simplex transmission goes one way only, as with a broadcast. Half duplex allows both directions but only one at a time, and full duplex both at once.