C952 WGU COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE
QUESTIONS WITH RIGHT ACTUAL
ANSWERS UPDATED .
Personal Computer(PC) - correct Answers -A computer designed for use by an individual,
usually incorporating a graphics display, a keyboard, and a mouse
Server - correct Answers -A computer used for running larger programs for multiple users, often
simultaneously, and typically accessed only via a network
Supercomputer - correct Answers -A class of computers with the highest performance and cost;
they are configured as servers and typically cost tens to hundreds of millions of dollars
Embedded computer - correct Answers -A computer inside another device used for running one
predetermined application or collection of software.
Personal mobile devices(PMDs) - correct Answers -Are small wireless devices to connect to the
internet; they rely on batteries for power, and software is installed by downloading apps.
Conventional examples are smart phones and tables
Cloud computing - correct Answers -refers to large collections of servers that provide services
over the internet; some providers rent dynamically varying numbers of servers as a utility
Software as a Service (SaaS) - correct Answers -delivers software and data as a service over the
internet, usually via a thin program such as a browser that runs on local client devices, instead of
binary code that must be installed, and runs wholly on that device. Examples include web search
and social networking
Acronym - correct Answers -A word constructed by taking the initial letters of a string of words.
For example: RAM is an acronym for Random Access Memory, and CPU is an acronym for
Central Processing Unit
1
,Terabyte(TB) - correct Answers -Originally 1,099,511,627,776(2^40) bytes, although
communications and secondary storage systems developers started using the term to mean
1,000,000,000,000(10^12) bytes. To reduce confusion, we now use the term
tebibyte(TiB) - correct Answers -for 2^40 bytes
Moore's Law - correct Answers -States that integrated circuit resources double every 18-24
months
Abstraction to Simplify Design - correct Answers -Used to characterize the design at different
levels of representation; lower-level details are hidden to offer a simpler model at higher levels
Common Case Fast - correct Answers -Will tend to enhance performance better than optimizing
the rare case.
Performance via parallelism - correct Answers -Since the dawn of computing, computer
architects have offered designs that get more performance by computer operations in parallel
Pipelining - correct Answers -Moves multiple operations through hardware units that each do a
piece of an operation, akin to water flowing through a pipeline
Prediction - correct Answers -In some cases it can be faster on average to guess the start working
rather than wait until you know for sure, assuming that the mechanism to recover from a
misprediction is not too expensive and your prediction is relatively accurate.
Hierarchy of Memories - correct Answers -This is used to address conflicting demands of fast,
large, and cheap memory with the fastest, smallest, and most expensive memory per bit at the top
of the hierarchy and the slowest, largest, and cheapest per bit at the bottom.
Dependability via Redundancy - correct Answers -We make systems Dependable by including
redundant components that can take over when a failure occurs.
2
,System Software - correct Answers -Software that provides services that are commonly useful,
including operating systems, compilers, loaders, and assemblers
Operating system - correct Answers -Supervising program that manages the resources of a
computer for the benefit of the programs that run on that computer
Compiler - correct Answers -A program that translates high-level language statements into
assembly language statements
Instruction - correct Answers -A command that computer hardware understands and obeys
Assembler - correct Answers -A program that translates a symbolic version of instructions into
the binary version
High-level programming language - correct Answers -A portable language such as C, C++, Java,
or Visual Basic that is composed of words and algebraic notation that can be translated by a
compiler into assembly language
Input device - correct Answers -A mechanism through which the computer is fed information,
such as a keyboard
Output device - correct Answers -A mechanism that conveys the result of a computation to a
user, such as a display, or to another computer
Liquid crystal display - correct Answers -A display technology using a thin layer of liquid
polymers that can be used to transmit or block light according to whether a change is applied
Active matrix display - correct Answers -A liquid crystal display using a transistor to control the
transmission of light at each individual pixel
3
, pixel - correct Answers -The smallest individual picture element. Screens are composed of
hundreds of thousands to millions of pixels, organized in a matrix
Integrated circuit - correct Answers -Also called a chip. A device combining dozens to millions
of transistors
Central Processor unity(CPU) - correct Answers -Also called processor. The active part of the
computer, which contains the datapath and control and which adds numbers, tests numbers,
signals I/O devices to activate, and so on
Datapath - correct Answers -The component of the processor that performs arithmetic operations
Control - correct Answers -The component of the processor that commands the datapath,
memory, and I/O devices according to the instructions of the program
Memory - correct Answers -The storage area in which programs are kept when they are running
and that contains the data needed by the running programs
Dynamic random access memeory(DRAM) - correct Answers -Memory built as an integrated
circuit; it provides random access to any location. Access times are 50 nanoseconds and cost per
gigabyte in 2012 was $5 to $10
Cache Memory - correct Answers -A small, fast memory that acts as a buffer for slower, larger
memory
Static random access memory(SRAM) - correct Answers -Also memory built as an integrated
circuit, but faster and less dense than DRAM
`Instruction set architecture - correct Answers -Also called architecture. An abstract interface
between the hardware and the lowest-level software that encompasses all the information
necessary to write a machine language program that will run correctly, including instructions,
registers, memory access, I/O, and so on
4
QUESTIONS WITH RIGHT ACTUAL
ANSWERS UPDATED .
Personal Computer(PC) - correct Answers -A computer designed for use by an individual,
usually incorporating a graphics display, a keyboard, and a mouse
Server - correct Answers -A computer used for running larger programs for multiple users, often
simultaneously, and typically accessed only via a network
Supercomputer - correct Answers -A class of computers with the highest performance and cost;
they are configured as servers and typically cost tens to hundreds of millions of dollars
Embedded computer - correct Answers -A computer inside another device used for running one
predetermined application or collection of software.
Personal mobile devices(PMDs) - correct Answers -Are small wireless devices to connect to the
internet; they rely on batteries for power, and software is installed by downloading apps.
Conventional examples are smart phones and tables
Cloud computing - correct Answers -refers to large collections of servers that provide services
over the internet; some providers rent dynamically varying numbers of servers as a utility
Software as a Service (SaaS) - correct Answers -delivers software and data as a service over the
internet, usually via a thin program such as a browser that runs on local client devices, instead of
binary code that must be installed, and runs wholly on that device. Examples include web search
and social networking
Acronym - correct Answers -A word constructed by taking the initial letters of a string of words.
For example: RAM is an acronym for Random Access Memory, and CPU is an acronym for
Central Processing Unit
1
,Terabyte(TB) - correct Answers -Originally 1,099,511,627,776(2^40) bytes, although
communications and secondary storage systems developers started using the term to mean
1,000,000,000,000(10^12) bytes. To reduce confusion, we now use the term
tebibyte(TiB) - correct Answers -for 2^40 bytes
Moore's Law - correct Answers -States that integrated circuit resources double every 18-24
months
Abstraction to Simplify Design - correct Answers -Used to characterize the design at different
levels of representation; lower-level details are hidden to offer a simpler model at higher levels
Common Case Fast - correct Answers -Will tend to enhance performance better than optimizing
the rare case.
Performance via parallelism - correct Answers -Since the dawn of computing, computer
architects have offered designs that get more performance by computer operations in parallel
Pipelining - correct Answers -Moves multiple operations through hardware units that each do a
piece of an operation, akin to water flowing through a pipeline
Prediction - correct Answers -In some cases it can be faster on average to guess the start working
rather than wait until you know for sure, assuming that the mechanism to recover from a
misprediction is not too expensive and your prediction is relatively accurate.
Hierarchy of Memories - correct Answers -This is used to address conflicting demands of fast,
large, and cheap memory with the fastest, smallest, and most expensive memory per bit at the top
of the hierarchy and the slowest, largest, and cheapest per bit at the bottom.
Dependability via Redundancy - correct Answers -We make systems Dependable by including
redundant components that can take over when a failure occurs.
2
,System Software - correct Answers -Software that provides services that are commonly useful,
including operating systems, compilers, loaders, and assemblers
Operating system - correct Answers -Supervising program that manages the resources of a
computer for the benefit of the programs that run on that computer
Compiler - correct Answers -A program that translates high-level language statements into
assembly language statements
Instruction - correct Answers -A command that computer hardware understands and obeys
Assembler - correct Answers -A program that translates a symbolic version of instructions into
the binary version
High-level programming language - correct Answers -A portable language such as C, C++, Java,
or Visual Basic that is composed of words and algebraic notation that can be translated by a
compiler into assembly language
Input device - correct Answers -A mechanism through which the computer is fed information,
such as a keyboard
Output device - correct Answers -A mechanism that conveys the result of a computation to a
user, such as a display, or to another computer
Liquid crystal display - correct Answers -A display technology using a thin layer of liquid
polymers that can be used to transmit or block light according to whether a change is applied
Active matrix display - correct Answers -A liquid crystal display using a transistor to control the
transmission of light at each individual pixel
3
, pixel - correct Answers -The smallest individual picture element. Screens are composed of
hundreds of thousands to millions of pixels, organized in a matrix
Integrated circuit - correct Answers -Also called a chip. A device combining dozens to millions
of transistors
Central Processor unity(CPU) - correct Answers -Also called processor. The active part of the
computer, which contains the datapath and control and which adds numbers, tests numbers,
signals I/O devices to activate, and so on
Datapath - correct Answers -The component of the processor that performs arithmetic operations
Control - correct Answers -The component of the processor that commands the datapath,
memory, and I/O devices according to the instructions of the program
Memory - correct Answers -The storage area in which programs are kept when they are running
and that contains the data needed by the running programs
Dynamic random access memeory(DRAM) - correct Answers -Memory built as an integrated
circuit; it provides random access to any location. Access times are 50 nanoseconds and cost per
gigabyte in 2012 was $5 to $10
Cache Memory - correct Answers -A small, fast memory that acts as a buffer for slower, larger
memory
Static random access memory(SRAM) - correct Answers -Also memory built as an integrated
circuit, but faster and less dense than DRAM
`Instruction set architecture - correct Answers -Also called architecture. An abstract interface
between the hardware and the lowest-level software that encompasses all the information
necessary to write a machine language program that will run correctly, including instructions,
registers, memory access, I/O, and so on
4
