Computer Operating System Questions and Answers

Answer: D

Correct answer: a permanent table which lists all key words and special symbols of the language in symbolic form

The terminal table holds the language’s own fixed vocabulary - its keywords, operators and punctuation - with the information the compiler needs about each. It is permanent because it is the same for every compilation, unlike the literal and identifier tables, which are built from each source program.

Answer: B

Correct answer: excessive paging activity that leaves little time for useful work

When the pages a process actively needs exceed the frames allotted to it, nearly every reference causes a page fault and the system spends its time swapping rather than computing. Reducing the degree of multiprogramming, or applying the working set model, brings it under control.

Answer: C

Correct answer: can itself performs the relocation of its address-sensitive portions

A self-relocating program carries its own relocating code: on entry it discovers where it has been loaded and adjusts its own address-sensitive instructions, so it needs no help from a relocating loader. A merely relocatable program leaves that work to the loader.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Top-down development

In top-down development the executive control modules are written and tested first, with stubs standing in for the lower-level routines that are not yet written. Interface errors and design faults therefore surface early, when they are still cheap to correct.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Testing checks for logical errors in the programs, while debugging is a process of correcting those errors in the program

Testing and debugging are separate activities: testing runs the program on chosen data to reveal that something is wrong, and debugging is the work of locating the fault and correcting it. Syntax errors never reach either stage, since the compiler rejects them first.

Answer: C

Correct answer: /s

SMARTDRV /S displays the cache statistics - the size of the cache, and the number of hits and misses - from which the hit rate can be judged. The other switches configure the cache rather than report on it.

Answer: B

Correct answer: shortened; lengthened

Multiprogramming interleaves the jobs, so a short job no longer waits behind a long one and its turnaround is shortened markedly. The long job now shares the processor with everything else and finishes a little later, so its turnaround is slightly lengthened - a large gain for the many at a small cost to the few.

Answer: A

Correct answer: BAK

The extension .BAK marks a backup copy, written automatically by many programs before they overwrite the original, so the previous version can be recovered. TXT holds text, COM an executable, and BAS a BASIC source file.

Answer: B

Correct answer: is a group of electrical circuits (hardware), that performs the intent of instructions fetched from memory

The instruction register holds the instruction currently being executed, and the circuits attached to it decode that instruction and issue the control signals that carry out its intent. The register naming the location to be accessed is the memory address register, and the one holding a copy of its contents is the memory data register.

Answer: D

Correct answer: giving away software with a computer purchase

Bundling is including software in the price of the machine rather than selling it separately - an operating system and a suite of applications supplied with the computer. The practice was central to several antitrust disputes, since bundled software is hard for a rival to compete with.