IT Fundamentals Midterm

True or False: Computers today are more easily identifiable than computers in the past.

False

True or False: Web developers and web administrators share most of the same tasks.

False

An IT person would probably be expected to study all of the following topics:

- Networking
- Operating systems
- Ethics
- Programming

Which behaviors might be considered as unethical from the position of a system administrator?

- Changing data files in the organization's system for one's own gain
- Accessing other people's files
- Reading employees' emails
- Setting up backdoor accounts

If users use passwords containing non-alphabetic characters or a combination of upper and letter case letters, this...

...promotes computer security.

True or False: System administrators should know more than one operating system.

True

True or False: It is the user who initiates when and what a computer should do.

True

True or False: System administrators will be expected to provide support in the form of documentation and training to the organization's users.

True

The concept of translating a program from a more readable language like Python or Java into the computer's native machine language is called...

compilation

True or False: The only difference between a handheld unit such as a tablet device or a smart phone differs from a laptop or desktop computer is that the laptop/desktop has full sized peripheral devices and the handheld unit uses touch screens.

False

What is the largest storage capacity?

4 gigabytes

True or False: If a device performs the IPOS cycle, we should consider it to be a computer no matter what the device is.

True

An IT person in general would not be expected to handle which task?

Monitor employees' files and web browsing behavior to ensure compliance with organizational IT policies

A security administrator would be responsible for administering a…

firewall

A computer system consists of the hardware, software and...

users

True or False: As an IT person, one should be someone who enjoys learning on your own.

True

True or False: A smartphone should not be considered a computer.

False

Detecting that a computer is running slowly because of a computer virus infection would be an example of which type of IT skill?

Troubleshooting

Which skill would an IT person employ to find and fix a problem with the operating system?

System troubleshooting

Volatility is a property of which of the following?

memory

True or False: As computer technology has improved and thus become more complex, the ability to use the computer has been made easier.

True

The system administrator is responsible for all of the following tasks:

- Training users
- Updating the operating system
- Installing software
- Troubleshooting hardware

True or False: Although an IT student may not learn a variety of programming languages, it is likely that the IT student will learn to program.

True

True or False: You can store a number between 0 and 255 in 1 bit.

False

What is an example of a peripheral device?

printer

True or False: Most people who work in IT have 4-year IT degrees.

False

What type of file would come closest to about 1 MByte in size?

A small black-and-white image file

True or False: The system administrator of a company would not be responsible for installing software on individual employee's computers.

False

True or False: Organizations typically only have one system administrator who will be responsible for all aspects of administering the computer systems.

False

The system unit houses the CPU and memory chips, all placed on a...

motherboard

True or False: The process and the program are the same; the two terms can be used interchangeably.

False

If a process generates an address that is part of another process' area of memory, this is known as a...

memory violation

If an entry in a page table is listed as not valid, then accessing that page will cause a...

page fault

True or False: While any device can issue an interrupt, it is the operating system that handles interrupts.

True

True or False: In a batch processing system, the operating system would have to schedule the next process to execute.

True

Concurrent processing means that the operating system executes processes in an overlapped fashion. What is not a form of concurrent processing?

batch processing

Where is swap space located?

the hard disk

True or False: The foreground process is the one that the user can directly interact with.

True

During a context switch, what is being switched?

- One process' register values for another
- One process' data for another
- One process' priority for another
- One process' pages for another

True or False: A virtual machine is hardware.

False

Two threads will always share the same...

program code

When two threads need to "meet up" in order to share data, this is known as...

rendezvous

True or False: Cooperative multitasking and competitive multitasking are the same thing.

False

Which form of process management did MS-DOS use?

Single tasking

True or False: The GUI is both easier to use and provides the user with greater flexibility in issuing instructions while the command line provides the user with the opportunity to write more detailed commands and so is more powerful.

False

The use of permissions to control who/what can and cannot access and use system resources is part of what operating system role?

Protection

Which form of scheduling will cause processes to wait the minimum amount of time?

Shortest job first

Which portion of the operating system can be personalized by the user?

the shell

The portion of the operating system that must be resident in memory at all times is...

the kernel

GRUB is an example of a...

boot loader program

Which hardware device can force the processor to move from one process to another in multitasking?

program counter

The process of swapping is triggered under which circumstance?

a page fault

What does an interrupt interrupt?

the CPU during its fetch-execute cycle

In Linux, the administrator account is called...

root

Bourne is an example of a Linux...

shell

True or False: With virtual memory, only portions of the running program are stored in memory.

True

In order for the operating system to be able to communicate with a specific piece of hardware, one must install the appropriate...

device driver

If two processes are deadlocked, what is your best move to free them from deadlock?

Kill one of the processes

True or False: A multithreaded operating system is more efficient than a multitasking operating system when executing threads.

True

Which form of processing would run one process at a time, but when that process requires I/O, the CPU would switch temporarily to another process?

Multitasking

When the CPU moves from one process to another in multitasking, this is known as a...

context switch

Which form of processing does not provide any form of interaction with the user but instead requires I/O be handled before/after program execution?

Multiprogramming

What is true in competitive multitasking?

The CPU switches between processes when a timer forces a context switch.

True or False: The operating system is software.

True

To determine where a given page is stored in memory, the operating system uses...

the page table

Files are broken into fixed sized units called ...

blocks

True or False: In both Windows and Linux, partitions are denoted by using different letters as in C: and D:.

False

Which file stores user account information?

/etc/passwd

In Linux, the system administrator's home directory is stored under...

/root

True or False: In Linux, you have one inode for every file and directory in your file system.

True

Mounting...

...makes a partition available.

Under which Linux top-level directory would you find most of the configuration files?

/etc

True or False: All files have names, although the extension is not required.

True

True or False: Disk access time is slower than memory access time.

True

In Linux, a soft link is called a...

symbolic link

The time it takes the read/write head to move across the disk to the proper track is called...

seek time

True or False: In Linux, every top-level directory is located on its own partition, whereas in Windows, all of the top-level directories are on the same partition.

False

In Linux, devices like the disk drives, USB drives, network devices and monitor are treated as files. These "files" are stored under which directory?

/dev

True or False: We view the file system from a physical perspective while the operating system manipulates it from a logical perspective.

False

In a linked list, how many links do you have to follow to reach the 5th block?

4 links

True or False: User passwords are not actually stored in the /etc/passwd file.

True

The zip and tar programs can be used to create...

archives

Under which Linux top-level directory would you find the user directories?

/home

True or False: You can separately mount and unmount each individual partition.

True

The /proc top level directory is different from most other Linux top level directories because...

...it is not stored on disk but instead stored in memory.

The file system for Windows and Linux are shaped like a...

tree

In Linux, you would expect to find many of the system administrator programs stored under...

/sbin

File name extensions are primarily used...

...by the operating system to know what software to use to open the file.

Which file stores the currently mounted file systems (partitions) in Linux?

/etc/mtab

With file blocks distributed across the file system instead of being stored in consecutive disk blocks, accessing the file requires traversing the blocks creating what one might call a...

linked list

Which Linux command is like the DOS command dir?

ls command

In file compression, lossy compression...

...reduces the file size by discarding some of the data.

In Windows, the Programs top level directory stores applications software. In Linux, the equivalent directory is...

/usr

In order to determine which directory you are currently in, which commands would you use respectively in Windows and Linux?

nothing in Windows, and pwd in Linux

If a hard disk contains 4 platters, how many read/write heads will the hard disk contain?

8 read/write heads

True or False: A hard link in a file system points at the file while a soft link points at a file's directory entry.

True

True or False: To create a directory, both Linux and DOS use mkdir.

True

Which tasks would not be possible for a system administrator to do on the file system?

- Mount and unmount specific partitions
- Encrypt portions of the file system
- Establish disk quotas
- Add remote storage to be accessed over network

In DOS, which symbol is used to denote a directory in a path?

backward slash (\)

The surface of a hard disk is broken into which types of regions?

tracks and sectors