CSI106 Final Exam – Key Concept Flashcards

A set of 70 question-and-answer flashcards covering computer architecture, cryptography, software engineering, data structures, databases, networking, multimedia, and number systems for CSI106 final-exam preparation.

Which computer subsystem stores data and programs?

The Memory subsystem.

What model forms the basis of almost all modern computers?

The Von Neumann model.

During the fetch phase, where is the next instruction copied?

Into the Instruction Register (IR).

What is produced by the decode step of the instruction cycle?

Binary control code for the upcoming operation.

Which CPU component temporarily holds data and is faster than main memory?

A register.

What is the 80-20 rule for cache memory?

A computer typically spends ~80 % of its time accessing ~20 % of the data, so that 20 % is kept in cache.

Which memory type uses capacitors and must be refreshed periodically?

DRAM (Dynamic RAM).

Firmware that starts an IBM-compatible PC and loads the OS is called what?

The ROM BIOS.

In RISC architecture, the instruction set consists mainly of operations.

Simple operations.

Transforming plaintext into ciphertext is called .

Encryption.

Reversing ciphertext back to plaintext is called .

Decryption.

The RSA confidentiality algorithm uses which type of cryptography?

Asymmetric-key (public-key) cryptography.

Which cipher uses one key stream element per plaintext symbol?

A stream cipher.

In a monoalphabetic cipher, the plaintext-ciphertext mapping is .

One-to-one (single fixed substitution).

Steganography means what?

Concealing a message by hiding it within another medium.

A DoS (Denial-of-Service) attack mainly threatens which security service?

Availability.

Which attack threatens confidentiality by passively capturing data?

Snooping.

Who are the “good-guy” ethical hackers?

White Hat hackers.

Which hackers break in for personal gain or malice?

Black Hat hackers.

Which hackers expose large data sets for public benefit without destructive intent?

Grey Hat hackers.

Which amateur hackers often act from revenge motives?

Blue Hat hackers.

Which hackers hunt and counter Black Hats?

Red Hat hackers.

Black-box testing evaluates software based on .

External inputs and expected outputs (functionality).

Name two common black-box testing techniques.

Boundary-value testing and exhaustive testing.

Basis-path testing is a white-box method that ensures what?

Every statement (or edge) executes at least once.

High cohesion and low coupling between modules improve what?

Software quality and maintainability.

The four classic SDLC phases are .

Analysis, Design, Implementation, and Testing.

In UML, which diagram shows how users interact with the system?

A Use-Case diagram.

Which search should be used on an ordered list for fastest results?

Binary search.

Which sort repeatedly selects the smallest remaining item and swaps it forward?

Selection sort.

Recursion is what kind of algorithmic process?

A function or algorithm calling itself.

A stack follows which access discipline?

LIFO – Last In, First Out.

A queue follows which access discipline?

FIFO – First In, First Out.

In a binary search tree, every left-subtree key is the root key.

Less than.

During preorder traversal, which node is processed first?

The root.

Open addressing is a collision-resolution method used in .

Hash tables.

Arrays provide fast retrieval but are poor for frequent .

Insertions and deletions (especially in the middle).

Row-major order stores two-dimensional arrays row by row in .

Contiguous memory.

Each column in a relational table is called an .

Attribute.

Transforming relations to reduce redundancy is known as .

Normalization.

The relational difference operation returns which rows?

Rows that are in the first relation but not in the second.

At the highest DBMS level, which schema interacts directly with users?

The External level.

TCP, UDP, and SCTP all reside in which layer of the TCP/IP model?

The Transport layer.

A port number identifies what?

An application-layer process at the source or destination host.

An IPv4 address contains how many bits?

32 bits.

LAN stands for what, and how is it usually owned?

Local Area Network; usually privately owned and limited in size.

FTP is the standard TCP/IP protocol for .

Copying files between hosts.

Pixels are in a digital image.

Individual picture elements (samples).

Bit depth measures what in audio or images?

The number of bits per sample (quantization levels).

Resampling an image by resizing is commonly called .

Scaling.

CD-RW is an optical disc that allows what feature?

Multiple writes and erasures (rewritable).

Groupings of 4 binary bits correspond to one digit.

Hexadecimal.

Groupings of 3 binary bits correspond to one digit.

Octal.

Adding 5 + 5 in 4-bit two’s-complement representation overflows to .

–6 (binary 1010).

A 17-bit excess-K exponent field has a bias of .

65 535 (2¹⁷ – 1).

SQL SELECT adds rows?

No; INSERT adds a new row, while SELECT retrieves rows.

A breadth-first traversal of a tree processes nodes level by level starting from .

The root.

Transferability in software quality refers to what?

Moving software or data to a new platform and reusing code.

Modularization is the practice of breaking a large project into .

Smaller, well-defined parts or modules.

In physical networking, the medium that carries signals is called the .

Transmission medium.

A hybrid P2P network uses client-server for directory services but P2P for .

File storage and transfer.

Sampling an analog audio signal at about samples/sec suffices for high-quality sound.

40 000 samples per second (≈ 44.1 kHz in practice).