Verified Test Bank Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 1

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In what way is an operating system like a government?

A) It seldom functions correctly.

B) It creates an environment within which other programs can do useful work.

C) It performs most useful functions by itself.

D) It is always concerned primarily with the individual's needs.

Section 1.1

Difficulty: Easy

2. Which of the following components of a computer system defines the ways to use system resources to solve computing problems?

A) application programs

B) operating system

C) computer hardware

D) computer logo

Difficulty: Easy

Feedback: 1.1

3. ____ operating systems are designed primarily to maximize resource utilization.

A) PC

B) Handheld computer

C) Mainframe

D) Network

Feedback: 1.1.1

Difficulty: Easy

4. Which of the following programs runs all the time on the computer?

A) compiler

B) assembler

C) text editor

D) kernel

Difficulty: Easy

Feedback: 1.1.3

5. Which of the following will trigger an interrupt?

A) kernel function

B) software execution

C) CPU execution

D) I/O completion

Difficulty: Easy

Feedback: 1.2.1

6. Which of the following is NOT secondary storage device?

A) random access memory

B) solid state disks

C) optical disk

D) magnetic tape

Difficulty: Easy

Feedback: 1.2.2

7. Which of the following contains the addresses of all the service routines?

A) page table

B) interrupt vector

C) system call table

D) file descriptor table

Difficulty: Easy

Feedback: 1.2.1.1

8. Which of the following stage triggers the CPU switch from user program to interrupt processing?

A) I/O request

B) transfer done

C) interrupt signaled

D) interrupt handled

Difficulty: Medium

Feedback: 1.2.1.1

9. The device controller _____ an interrupt by asserting a signal on the

interrupt request line.

A) raises

B) catches

C) dispatches

D) clears

Difficulty: Easy

Feedback: 1.2.1.2

10. The CPU catches the interrupt and ____ it to the interrupt handler

A) raises

B) catches

C) dispatches

D) clears

Difficulty: Easy

Feedback: 1.2.1.2

11. Which of the following clears the interrupt by servicing the device?

A) interrupt request line

B) interrupt-controller hardware

C) interrupt vector

D) interrupt service routine

Difficulty: Medium

Feedback: 1.2.1.1

12. Which of the following is nonvolatile?

A) register

B) cache

C) main memory

D) hard-disk drive

Difficulty: Easy

Feedback: 1.2.2

13. Which of the following is tertiary storage medium?

A) register

B) magnetic tapes

C) main memory

D) hard-disk drive

Difficulty: Easy

Feedback: 1.2.2

14. Which of the following is the denotation of 1024³ bytes?

A) KB

B) MB

C) GB

D) TB

Difficulty: Easy

Feedback: 1.2.2

15. Which of the following storage medium is the slowest regarding access speed?

A) cache

B) solid state drive

C) register

D) main memory

Difficulty: Easy

Feedback: 1.2.2

16. Which of the following is the definition of processor?

A) the hardware that executes instructions

B) a physical chip that contains one or more CPUs

C) the basic computation unit of the CPU

D) including multiple computing cores on the same CPU

Difficulty: Medium

Feedback: 1.3.2

17. Where is the location of L1 cache?

A) inside CPU core

B) inside processor but outside CPU core

C) inside main memory

D) inside registers

Difficulty: Medium

Feedback: 1.3.2

18. Which of the following is loosely coupled?

A) multiprocessor systems

B) single-processor system

C) multi-core processor

D) clustered system

Difficulty: Easy

Feedback: 1.3.3

19. Which of the following technology reduces the overhead for bulk data movement?

A) Direct Memory Access (DMA)

B) Non-uniform Memory Access (NUMA)

C) Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP)

D) Storage Area Network (SAN)

Difficulty: Easy

Feedback: 1.2.3

20. The two separate modes of operating in a system are

A) supervisor mode and system mode

B) kernel mode and privileged mode

C) physical mode and logical mode

D) user mode and kernel mode

Difficulty: Medium

Feedback: 1.5.1

21. Which of the following principles is used for adding and removing items from a stack?

A) first in first out (FIFO)

B) last in first out (LIFO)

C) random order

D) round robin

Difficulty: Easy

Feedback: 1.9.1

22. Which of the following principles is used for adding and removing items from a queue?

A) first in first out (FIFO)

B) last in first out (LIFO)

C) random order

D) round robin

Difficulty: Easy

Feedback: 1.9.1

23. Which of the following are used by Linux kernel as data structures?

A) Lists, Stacks, and Queues

B) Trees

C) Hash Functions and Maps

D) Bitmaps

E) All of the above

Difficulty: Easy

Feedback: 1.9

24. Which of the following computing environments place rigid time requirements on the

operation of a processor or the flow of data?

A) traditional computing

B) real-time embedded system

C) client-server computing

D) peer-to-peer computing

Difficulty: Easy

Feedback: 1.10.6

25. Which of the following statements is false?

A) Mobile devices must be concerned with power consumption.

B) Mobile devices can provide features that are unavailable on desktop or laptop computers.

C) The difference in storage capacity between a mobile device and laptop is shrinking.

D) Mobile devices usually have fewer processing cores than a standard desktop computer.

Difficulty: Medium

Feedback:1.11.2

Essay Questions

1. Computer systems can be divided into four approximate components. What are they?

Feedback: 1.1

Difficulty: Easy

2. Explain why an operating system can be viewed as a resource allocator.

Feedback: 1.1.2

Difficulty: Medium

3. Distinguish between system and application programs.

Feedback: 1.1.3

Difficulty: Easy

4. Why is main memory not suitable for permanent program storage or backup purposes? Furthermore, what is the main disadvantage to storing information on a magnetic disk drive as opposed to main memory?

Feedback: 1.2

Difficulty: Hard

5. Explain the purpose of an interrupt vector.

Feedback: 1.2.1

Difficulty: Medium

6. What is a bootstrap program, and where is it stored?

Feedback: 1.2.1

Difficulty: Medium

7. What role do device controllers and device drivers play in a computer system?

Feedback: 1.2.1

Difficulty: Medium

8. Describe why direct memory access (DMA) is considered an efficient mechanism for performing I/O.

Feedback: 1.2.3

Difficulty: Medium

9. Describe why multi-core processing is more efficient than placing each processor on its own chip.

Feedback: 1.3.2

Difficulty: Medium

10. Distinguish between uniform memory access (UMA) and non-uniform memory access (NUMA) systems.

Feedback: 1.3.2

Difficulty: Medium

11. Why are clustered systems considered to provide high-availability service?

Feedback: 1.3.3

Difficulty: Medium

12. Describe the differences between physical, virtual, and logical memory.

Feedback: 1.4

Difficulty: Medium

13. Describe the operating system's two modes of operation.

Feedback: 1.5.1

Difficulty: Medium

14. Explain cache coherency.

Feedback: 1.8.3

Difficulty: Medium

15. Explain the difference between protection and security.

Feedback: 1.9

Difficulty: Medium

16. Explain the difference between singly, doubly, and circularly linked lists.

Feedback:1.10.1

Difficulty: Easy

17. What two operating systems currently dominate mobile computing?

Feedback:1.11.2

Difficulty: Easy

18. Distinguish mobile computing from traditional desktop computing.

Feedback: 1.11.2

Difficulty: Medium

19. Describe the compute-server and file-server types of server systems.

Feedback: 1.10.3

Difficulty: Medium

20. Describe cloud computing.

Feedback:1.10.7

Difficulty: Hard

True/False Questions

1. There is no universally accepted definition of an operating system.

Feedback:1.1.3

Difficulty: Medium

2. Solid state disks are generally faster than magnetic disks.

Feedback: 1.5.5

Difficulty: Easy

3. Solid state disks are considered volatile storage.

Feedback: 1.2.2

Difficulty: Medium

4. Virtually all modern operating systems provide support for SMP

Feedback: 1.3.2

Difficulty: Easy

5. MapReduce is a system which allows for parallel processing of data across nodes in the cluster.

Feedback:1.4

Difficulty: Medium

6. A system call runs in kernel mode only.

Feedback:1.4.2

Difficulty: Easy

7. A system call is triggered by hardware.

Feedback: 1.5.1

Difficulty: Easy

8. The process runs with effective UID all the time until the process is stopped.

Feedback:1.6

Difficulty: Medium

9. On UNIX, the setuid attribute on a program causes that program to run with the user ID of the current user’s ID.

Feedback:1.6

Difficulty: Medium

10. VMware is a virtual machine manager when it manages guest operating systems.

Feedback:1.7

Difficulty: Easy

11. Skype uses a hybrid peer-to-peer approach.

Feedback:1.10.4

Difficulty: Easy

12. Processors for most mobile devices run at a slower speed than a processor in a desktop PC.

Feedback: 1.10.2

Difficulty: Medium