Coding 2025 TSA

What is hardware?

Physical components of a computer system

What is a motherboard?

The main circuit board that connects all components of a computer

What is the central processing unit (CPU)?

The part of the computer responsible for performing calculations and executing instructions

What are the two major CPU manufacturers for PCs (personal computers)?

Intel and AMD

What is mass storage?

Long-term storage for data

What is a Hard Disk Drive (HDD)?

A storage device that uses rotating magnetic disks to read/write data

What is a Solid State Drive (SSD)?

A storage device that uses flash memory to store data

Which is generally faster: HDD or SSD?

SSD

Which is less prone to failure: HDD or SSD? Why?

SSD, because it has no moving parts

What is random access memory (RAM)?

Memory that the CPU uses to store and retrieve data quickly while the computer is on

When is RAM used?

During active processing and running of programs

How is RAM different from mass storage? Why?

RAM is faster and used for temporary data during processing

When should mass storage be used over RAM?

When data needs to be permanently stored

What is cache (in the context of computing)?

A type of RAM used for temporary storage of frequently accessed data

What is a graphical processing unit (GPU)?

A component that handles video and graphical data

What two places does the GPU typically reside?

In the CPU and in a dedicated graphics card

What is a clock (in the context of computing)?

A timer that synchronizes the speed of the CPU and other components

What is the power supply unit (PSU)?

The component that provides power to the computer's internal components

What is Universal Serial Bus (USB)? When would you use it?

A protocol for transferring data between devices, typically used for peripherals

What is a Secure Digital (SD) card? When would you use it?

A small storage device for transferring data, commonly used in cameras and mobile devices

What is Video Graphics Array (VGA)

Digital Visual Interface (DVI), and High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) for?, They are video output interfaces for connecting to displays

What are routers?

Devices that manage and direct traffic between computer networks

What are modems?

Devices that modulate and demodulate signals to allow communication over telephone lines or cable systems

What is an encoding?

A system for representing text

What is binary?

A system of two digits

What is decimal?

A number system based on ten digits

What is octal?

A number system based on eight digits

What is hexadecimal?

A number system based on sixteen digits

What is base-64?

A method for encoding binary data

What is American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII)?

A character encoding standard

What is Unicode Transformation Format 8 (UTF-8)?

A character encoding standard

What is the difference between encodings and encryption?

Encoding is reversible, encryption is not

What is a bit?

The smallest unit of data

What is a byte?

A unit of data equal to 8 bits

What is a hertz?

A unit of frequency

What are metric prefixes (kilo

mega, giga, tera, peta)?, Prefixes used to denote powers of ten

What are binary prefixes (kibi

mebi, gibi, tebi, pebi)?, Prefixes used to denote powers of two

What is the difference between metric and binary prefixes?

Metric prefixes are powers of ten, binary prefixes are powers of two

Why don't we really use binary prefixes?

They are less intuitive

You buy a thumb drive with 64 gigabytes. However

when you check the properties, the numbers are off. Why is this?, The drive uses binary prefixes

What is firmware?

Software embedded in hardware

What is system setup?

A configuration utility for hardware

What is BIOS/UEFI?

Basic Input/Output System

What is a compiler?

A tool that translates code into machine language

What is an assembler?

A tool that converts assembly language into machine code

What is an interpreter (in computing)?

A tool that directly executes instructions from a high-level program

What is assembly?

A low-level programming language

What is a runtime environment?

The environment in which a program executes

What is bytecode?

A form of intermediate code between high-level code and machine code

What is machine code?

Code directly executed by the computer's CPU

What does it mean for a project to be open source? What are some examples of open source projects?

The source code is freely available to the public

What is a proprietary program?

A program whose source code is not made public

What is a high-level language? Examples?

A programming language that is closer to human languages

What is a low-level language? Examples?

A programming language closer to machine code

How are high-level and low-level programming languages different?

High-level languages are closer to human languages, low-level are closer to machine code

What does it mean for a programming language to be object-oriented? Examples?

The language uses objects for data manipulation

What is a programming language?

A set of instructions for a computer

Identify the following languages and list common uses: Java

C, C#, C++, Python, JavaScript., Various programming languages for different tasks

What is an integer (int)?

A whole number

What is a string (str)?

A sequence of characters

What is a character (chr)?

A single symbol

What is a floating-point (float) number?

A number with a decimal point

What is a boolean (bool) value?

A value that is either true or false

Why are there different variable types?

To store different types of data efficiently

What is type casting?

The conversion of one data type to another

What is a list?

A collection of ordered elements

What is an array?

A collection of elements of the same type

What is a set?

A collection of unique elements

What is a dictionary (map)?

A collection of key-value pairs

What are if statements?

A control flow statement for decision-making

What are if-else statements?

A control flow that chooses between two options

What are logic gates?

Basic digital circuits for decision-making

What do each of these logic gates do? OR

AND, NOT, XOR., Perform operations on binary data

What is a for loop?

A loop that iterates a fixed number of times

What is a while loop?

A loop that runs until a condition is false

What is a function?

A block of code designed to perform a task

What is an object?

An instance of a class

What is a method?

A function associated with an object

What is a class?

A blueprint for creating objects

What is a bug?

An error in a program

What is debugging?

The process of identifying and fixing bugs

What is code?

Instructions written in a programming language

What is an algorithm?

A step-by-step process for solving a problem

What is a program?

A set of instructions executed by a computer

What is data?

Information processed by a computer

What is input and output?

Data sent to and from a computer

What is the internet?

A global network of computers

What is a packet?

A unit of data transmitted over a network

What is Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)?

A suite of communication protocols used for the internet

What is User Datagram Protocol / Internet Protocol (UDP/IP)?

A communication protocol for faster data transfer

How is TCP and UDP different? When may you want to use one over another?

TCP is reliable, UDP is faster

What is an IP address?

A unique identifier for a device on a network

What is the World Wide Web?

A system of interlinked hypertext documents

What is a web browser?

A tool for accessing the internet

What is HTML?

A markup language used to create the structure of web pages

What is the Domain Name System (DNS)?

A system that translates domain names into IP addresses

What is a Universal Resource Locator (URL)?

The address of a resource on the internet

What is Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)?

A protocol for transferring hypertext documents

What is HTTPS? Why do almost all websites today use HTTPS over HTTP?

HTTPS is secure, encrypting data during transfer

Why is HTML

CSS, and JavaScript important for making basic websites?, They are the core technologies for web development