1. The most common secondary storage device is ____.
A) random access memory
B) dynamic random access memory
C) tape drives
D) magnetic disk
2. Embedded computers typically run on a ____ operating system.
A) real-time
B) Windows XP
C) network
D) clustered
3. Which of the following is a property of peer-to-peer systems?
A) Clients and servers are not distinguished from one another.
B) Separate machines act as either the client of the server but not both.
C) They do not offer any advantages over traditional client-server systems.
D) They suffer from the server acting as the bottleneck in performance.
4. Two important design issues for cache memory are ____.
A) speed and volatility
B) size and replacement policy
C) power consumption and reusability
D) size and access privileges
5. A bootstrap program is stored _________ .
A) in volatile memory
B) on one or more disks
C) in read only memory units
D) in sequential circuits
6. The purpose of a device driver is to understand the device controller and ________ .
A) present a uniform interface for the device to the rest of the operating system
B) permit programs to access devices
C) allow operating systems to allocate resources
D) support data flow to the device
Page 2
, 7. The two modes of operation of an operating system are called ___________ .
A) process and kernel
B) ready and running
C) interrupt and system
D) kernel and user
8. An operating system may be viewed as a resource allocator of such things as CPU time,
memory space, file-storage space, I/O devices, and so on, due to the requirement that
_________ .
A) such things need to allocated to be useful for operating systems to work
B) conflicts of resource usage must not be permitted to happen
C) computer users must be satisfied that resources are available on request
D) resources be used efficiently by users
9. Which of the following is an example of a systems program?
A) command interpreter
B) Web browser
C) text formatter
D) database system
10. A message passing model is ____.
A) easier to implement than a shared memory model for intercomputer communication
B) is faster than the shared memory model
C) a network protocol and does not apply to operating systems
D) is only useful for small simple operating systems
11. Policy ____.
A) determines how to do something
B) determines what will be done
C) is not likely to change across places
D) is not likely to change over time
12. The major difficulty in designing a layered operating system approach is ____.
A) making sure each layer is easily converted to modules
B) making sure that each layer hides certain data structures, hardware, and operations
from higher-level layers
C) debugging a particular layer
D) appropriately defining the various layers
Page 3
,13. A microkernel is a kernel ____.
A) containing many components that are optimized to reduce resident memory size
B) that is compressed before loading in order to reduce its resident memory size
C) that is compiled to produce the smallest size possible when stored to disk
D) that is stripped of all nonessential components
14. CPU registers are often used to ________ .
A) pass parameters to the operating system
B) store values for reuse by other user programs
C) save memory for storing programs
D) None of the above responses are correct.
15. In a virtual machine, each program believes that it has ____.
A) multiple processors
B) its own memory
C) another "virtual" computer to assist in its operations
D) more memory than is physically available on the machine
16. An advantage to using a higher-level language to implement an operating system is
___________ .
A) the code can be written faster, is more compact, and is easier to understand and
debug
B) modern computer science students do not learn machine language programming
C) an operating system is far easier to port to some other hardware if it is written in a
higher-level language
D) Both A and C are correct responses
17. The ____ of a process contains temporary data such as function parameters, return
addresses, and local variables.
A) text section
B) data section
C) program counter
D) stack
18. A process control block ____.
A) determines which process is to be executed next
B) stores the address of the next instruction to be processed by a different process
C) includes information on the process's state
D) is an example of a process queue
Page 4
, 19. The list of processes waiting for a particular I/O device is called a(n) ____.
A) standby queue
B) device queue
C) ready queue
D) interrupt queue
20. When a child process is created, which of the following is a possibility in terms of
the execution or address space of the child process?
A) The child process runs concurrently with the parent.
B) The child process has a new program loaded into it.
C) The child is a duplicate of the parent.
D) All of the above responses are correct.
21. For a single-processor system __________ .
A) processes spend long times waiting to execute
B) there will never be more than one running process
C) input-output always causes CPU slowdown
D) process scheduling is always optimal
22. The task of saving the state of the current process and restoring the state of
another process is called _______ .
A) virtual memory swapping
B) process interleaving
C) process control blocking
D) context switching
23. A CPU-bound process _________ .
A) infrequently requests I/O operations and spends more of its time
performing computational work
B) frequently requests I/O operations and spends more of its time performing
computational work
C) infrequently requests I/O operations and spends less of its time performing
computational work
D) frequently requests I/O operations and spends less of its time
performing computational work
Page 5
A) random access memory
B) dynamic random access memory
C) tape drives
D) magnetic disk
2. Embedded computers typically run on a ____ operating system.
A) real-time
B) Windows XP
C) network
D) clustered
3. Which of the following is a property of peer-to-peer systems?
A) Clients and servers are not distinguished from one another.
B) Separate machines act as either the client of the server but not both.
C) They do not offer any advantages over traditional client-server systems.
D) They suffer from the server acting as the bottleneck in performance.
4. Two important design issues for cache memory are ____.
A) speed and volatility
B) size and replacement policy
C) power consumption and reusability
D) size and access privileges
5. A bootstrap program is stored _________ .
A) in volatile memory
B) on one or more disks
C) in read only memory units
D) in sequential circuits
6. The purpose of a device driver is to understand the device controller and ________ .
A) present a uniform interface for the device to the rest of the operating system
B) permit programs to access devices
C) allow operating systems to allocate resources
D) support data flow to the device
Page 2
, 7. The two modes of operation of an operating system are called ___________ .
A) process and kernel
B) ready and running
C) interrupt and system
D) kernel and user
8. An operating system may be viewed as a resource allocator of such things as CPU time,
memory space, file-storage space, I/O devices, and so on, due to the requirement that
_________ .
A) such things need to allocated to be useful for operating systems to work
B) conflicts of resource usage must not be permitted to happen
C) computer users must be satisfied that resources are available on request
D) resources be used efficiently by users
9. Which of the following is an example of a systems program?
A) command interpreter
B) Web browser
C) text formatter
D) database system
10. A message passing model is ____.
A) easier to implement than a shared memory model for intercomputer communication
B) is faster than the shared memory model
C) a network protocol and does not apply to operating systems
D) is only useful for small simple operating systems
11. Policy ____.
A) determines how to do something
B) determines what will be done
C) is not likely to change across places
D) is not likely to change over time
12. The major difficulty in designing a layered operating system approach is ____.
A) making sure each layer is easily converted to modules
B) making sure that each layer hides certain data structures, hardware, and operations
from higher-level layers
C) debugging a particular layer
D) appropriately defining the various layers
Page 3
,13. A microkernel is a kernel ____.
A) containing many components that are optimized to reduce resident memory size
B) that is compressed before loading in order to reduce its resident memory size
C) that is compiled to produce the smallest size possible when stored to disk
D) that is stripped of all nonessential components
14. CPU registers are often used to ________ .
A) pass parameters to the operating system
B) store values for reuse by other user programs
C) save memory for storing programs
D) None of the above responses are correct.
15. In a virtual machine, each program believes that it has ____.
A) multiple processors
B) its own memory
C) another "virtual" computer to assist in its operations
D) more memory than is physically available on the machine
16. An advantage to using a higher-level language to implement an operating system is
___________ .
A) the code can be written faster, is more compact, and is easier to understand and
debug
B) modern computer science students do not learn machine language programming
C) an operating system is far easier to port to some other hardware if it is written in a
higher-level language
D) Both A and C are correct responses
17. The ____ of a process contains temporary data such as function parameters, return
addresses, and local variables.
A) text section
B) data section
C) program counter
D) stack
18. A process control block ____.
A) determines which process is to be executed next
B) stores the address of the next instruction to be processed by a different process
C) includes information on the process's state
D) is an example of a process queue
Page 4
, 19. The list of processes waiting for a particular I/O device is called a(n) ____.
A) standby queue
B) device queue
C) ready queue
D) interrupt queue
20. When a child process is created, which of the following is a possibility in terms of
the execution or address space of the child process?
A) The child process runs concurrently with the parent.
B) The child process has a new program loaded into it.
C) The child is a duplicate of the parent.
D) All of the above responses are correct.
21. For a single-processor system __________ .
A) processes spend long times waiting to execute
B) there will never be more than one running process
C) input-output always causes CPU slowdown
D) process scheduling is always optimal
22. The task of saving the state of the current process and restoring the state of
another process is called _______ .
A) virtual memory swapping
B) process interleaving
C) process control blocking
D) context switching
23. A CPU-bound process _________ .
A) infrequently requests I/O operations and spends more of its time
performing computational work
B) frequently requests I/O operations and spends more of its time performing
computational work
C) infrequently requests I/O operations and spends less of its time performing
computational work
D) frequently requests I/O operations and spends less of its time
performing computational work
Page 5
