Technology Questions and Answers

Answer: C

SNMP stands for Simple Network Management Protocol.

It lets a management station query and configure routers, switches and servers, reading values from each device's management information base and receiving traps when something goes wrong.

Answer: A

A source program is written in a high-level language.

High-level languages such as C, Java and Python are close to human notation and independent of the machine. A compiler or interpreter translates the source into the machine code the processor executes.

Answer: B

MIDI was introduced in 1983.

The Musical Instrument Digital Interface let synthesisers from different makers control one another. It carries not sound but instructions - which note, how hard, how long - which is why a MIDI file is a fraction the size of an audio recording.

Answer: C

URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator.

It gives the protocol, the host and the path of a resource, so it says both where a thing is and how to fetch it. It is a subtype of the more general URI.

Answer: C

SOAP stands for Simple Object Access Protocol.

It is an XML-based protocol for exchanging structured information between web services, usually over HTTP. Its verbosity is why REST and JSON have largely replaced it.

Answer: A

The Windows directory structure is hierarchical.

Folders contain files and further folders, forming a tree from the drive root downwards. A flat structure would put every file in one list, which is unworkable beyond a few hundred files.

Answer: C

Car is not a network topology.

The topologies are bus, ring, star, mesh and tree. They describe how the nodes are connected: a bus shares one cable, a ring passes signals round a loop, and a star centres on a hub or switch.

Answer: D

www.hotmail.com is where you can set up an email account.

Hotmail, founded in 1996 and bought by Microsoft, was among the first web-based email services; it is now Outlook.com. The others are a documentation site, an examination body and an education site.

Answer: D

The internet uses packet switching.

Data is broken into packets, each routed independently and reassembled at the destination. No circuit is reserved, so the network is used efficiently and survives the loss of any link - the property it was designed for.

Answer: D

Blue is 6 on the resistor colour code.

The sequence is black 0, brown 1, red 2, orange 3, yellow 4, green 5, blue 6, violet 7, grey 8, white 9. The first two bands give the digits, the third the multiplier and the fourth the tolerance.