©THESTAR EXAM SOLUTIONS 2024/2025
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CSE 511 Midterm Exam Questions With
Verified And Updated Answers
True or false, sources of dat are becoming larger and more diverse - answer✔True, Billions or
even trillions of data sources
What is the goal of data processing? - answer✔To extract data that is useful
Why is the volume of data that is available so large? - answer✔Increasing number of data
sources (social media, wearable tech, sensors, cameras, etc), formats, and data points
How much data is possibly generated in a day? - answer✔A petabyte (1 million GB)
What is scalable data processing? - answer✔Allows database processing systems to cope with
the volume, velocity, and variety aspects that big data brings into the system
What are the different types of data processing systems? - answer✔Relational DBMS, NoSQL
Graph/Document Key Value Stores, and Hadoop/Spark
What are the characteristics of a Relational DBMS? - answer✔Operational workload, presents
entities and objects in the world using tables and relations between tables
What are the characteristics of a NoSQL Graph, Document, Key Value Stores? -
answer✔Unstructured data, highly available systems. Runs queries that extract knowledge from
the data.
What are the characteristics of Hadoop/Spark? - answer✔Not operational, for analytics over
massive scale data
What is a database? - answer✔A very large, integrated collection of data that models real world
enterprises using entities and relationships between those entities
What are the three goals of a DBMS? - answer✔To store, retrieve, and manage data
What are the benefits of using a DBMS? - answer✔Data independnce (don't need to know how
data is organized), Efficient data access (indexes), data administration (one location where data
1|Page
, ©THESTAR EXAM SOLUTIONS 2024/2025
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is stored), concurrent access + crash recovery, data integrity + security, reduced app
development time (don't have to worry about scalability of database or database performance)
What is a data model - answer✔collection of concepts for describing data. The mathematical
equation that defines a relationship.
What is a schema? - answer✔A description of a particular collection of data in tables using a
given data model. Description of data using tables in the relational model
What are the three levels of abstraction? - answer✔External Schema (Views), Conceptual
Schema, and Physical Schema
What are the external schema (views)? - answer✔Describes how users see the data. Can have
multiple views on top of a conceptual schema.
What is the conceptual schema? - answer✔Defines the logical structure of the relation. The
attributes that make up the database. Only one conceptual schemal per relation.
What is the physical schema? - answer✔Describes the files and indexes used. How the data is
sorted, stored, and indexed.
What is logical data independence? - answer✔Protection from changes in logical structure.
What is physical data independence? - answer✔Protection from physical structure of data.
Why are logical and physical data independence so beneficial? - answer✔The application that is
accessing the database is not affected by changes in the logical structure or physical structure
in the database thanks to the DBMS
What are the thee phases of Database Design? - answer✔"1: Requirement analysis (what users
expect)
2: Conceptual database design (build entity relationship (ER) diagram)
3: Logical database design (convert ER design into a relational database schema."
What questions should be answered when defining the ER diagram? - answer✔What are the
entities + relationships in the enterprise? What info about these entities and relationships
should we store? What are the integrity constraints or business rules that hold?
What are entities? - answer✔Real world objects. Described using a set of attributes. Shown as
an oval in an ER diagram.
What is an entity set? - answer✔Collection of similar entities. Each entity set has a key. Each
attribute has a domain. All entities in a set have same number of attributes. Shown as a square
in an ER diagram.
2|Page
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
CSE 511 Midterm Exam Questions With
Verified And Updated Answers
True or false, sources of dat are becoming larger and more diverse - answer✔True, Billions or
even trillions of data sources
What is the goal of data processing? - answer✔To extract data that is useful
Why is the volume of data that is available so large? - answer✔Increasing number of data
sources (social media, wearable tech, sensors, cameras, etc), formats, and data points
How much data is possibly generated in a day? - answer✔A petabyte (1 million GB)
What is scalable data processing? - answer✔Allows database processing systems to cope with
the volume, velocity, and variety aspects that big data brings into the system
What are the different types of data processing systems? - answer✔Relational DBMS, NoSQL
Graph/Document Key Value Stores, and Hadoop/Spark
What are the characteristics of a Relational DBMS? - answer✔Operational workload, presents
entities and objects in the world using tables and relations between tables
What are the characteristics of a NoSQL Graph, Document, Key Value Stores? -
answer✔Unstructured data, highly available systems. Runs queries that extract knowledge from
the data.
What are the characteristics of Hadoop/Spark? - answer✔Not operational, for analytics over
massive scale data
What is a database? - answer✔A very large, integrated collection of data that models real world
enterprises using entities and relationships between those entities
What are the three goals of a DBMS? - answer✔To store, retrieve, and manage data
What are the benefits of using a DBMS? - answer✔Data independnce (don't need to know how
data is organized), Efficient data access (indexes), data administration (one location where data
1|Page
, ©THESTAR EXAM SOLUTIONS 2024/2025
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
is stored), concurrent access + crash recovery, data integrity + security, reduced app
development time (don't have to worry about scalability of database or database performance)
What is a data model - answer✔collection of concepts for describing data. The mathematical
equation that defines a relationship.
What is a schema? - answer✔A description of a particular collection of data in tables using a
given data model. Description of data using tables in the relational model
What are the three levels of abstraction? - answer✔External Schema (Views), Conceptual
Schema, and Physical Schema
What are the external schema (views)? - answer✔Describes how users see the data. Can have
multiple views on top of a conceptual schema.
What is the conceptual schema? - answer✔Defines the logical structure of the relation. The
attributes that make up the database. Only one conceptual schemal per relation.
What is the physical schema? - answer✔Describes the files and indexes used. How the data is
sorted, stored, and indexed.
What is logical data independence? - answer✔Protection from changes in logical structure.
What is physical data independence? - answer✔Protection from physical structure of data.
Why are logical and physical data independence so beneficial? - answer✔The application that is
accessing the database is not affected by changes in the logical structure or physical structure
in the database thanks to the DBMS
What are the thee phases of Database Design? - answer✔"1: Requirement analysis (what users
expect)
2: Conceptual database design (build entity relationship (ER) diagram)
3: Logical database design (convert ER design into a relational database schema."
What questions should be answered when defining the ER diagram? - answer✔What are the
entities + relationships in the enterprise? What info about these entities and relationships
should we store? What are the integrity constraints or business rules that hold?
What are entities? - answer✔Real world objects. Described using a set of attributes. Shown as
an oval in an ER diagram.
What is an entity set? - answer✔Collection of similar entities. Each entity set has a key. Each
attribute has a domain. All entities in a set have same number of attributes. Shown as a square
in an ER diagram.
2|Page
