WGU C952 - Computer Architecture Exam Questions Solved Correctly Latest 2025
Server - Answers A computer used for running larger programs for multiple users, often simultaneously,
and typically accessed via a network.
Supercomputer - 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. Also a form of server.
Embedded computer - Answers A computer inside another device used for running one predetermined
application or collection of software.
Personal mobile devices (PMDs) - 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 tablets.
Cloud computing - 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) - 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.
Multicore microprocessor - Answers A microprocessor containing multiple processors ("cores") in a
single integrated circuit.
Terabyte (TB) - Answers Originally 2^40 bytes, although communications and secondary storage systems
developers started using the term to mean 10^12 bytes. To reduce confusion, we now use the term
tebibyte (TiB) for 2^40 bytes, defining terabyte (TB) to mean 10^12 bytes.
Moore's Law - Answers states that integrated circuit resources double every 18-24 months.
Abstractions - Answers to characterize the design at different levels of representation; lower-level
details are hidden to offer a simpler model at higher levels.
Common case - Answers fast will tend to enhance performance better than optimizing the rare case.
Parallel - Answers Computer architects have offered designs that get more performance by computing
operations in parallel.
Pipelining - Answers which moves multiple operations through hardware unites that each do a piece of
an operation, akin to water flowing through a pipeline.
Prediction - Answers In some cases it can be faster on average to guess and 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 - Answers Architects have found that they can address conflicting demands of
fast, large, and cheap memory with a hierarchy of memories, with the fastest, smaller, and most
expensive memory per bit at the top of the hierarchy and the slowest, largest, and cheapest per bit at
the bottom.
Dependable - Answers Since any physical device can fail, we make systems dependable by including
redundant components that can take over when a failure occurs and to help detect failures.
Systems software - Answers Software that provides services that are commonly useful, including
operating systems, compilers, loaders, and assemblers.
Operating system - Answers Supervising program that manages the resources of a computer for the
benefit of the programs that run on that computer.
Compiler - Answers A program that translates high-level language statements into assembly language
statements.
Binary digit - Answers Also called a bit. One of the two numbers in base 2 (0 or 1) that are the
components of information.
Instruction - Answers A command that computer hardware understands and obeys.
Assembler - Answers A program that translate a symbolic version of instructions into the binary version.
Assembly language - Answers A symbolic representation of machine instructions.
Machine language - Answers A binary representation of machine instructions.
High-level programming language - 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 - Answers A mechanism through which the computer is fed information, such as a
keyboard.
Output device - Answers A mechanism that conveys the result of a computation to a user, such as a
display, or to another computer.
The Big Picture - Answers The five classic components of a computer are input, output, memory,
datapath, and control, with the last two sometimes combined and called the processor. This
organization is independent of hardware technology: you can place every piece of every computer, past
and present, into one of these five categories.
Liquid crystal display - Answers A display technology using a thin layer of liquid polymers that can be
used to transmit or block light according to whether a charge is applied.
, Active matrix display - Answers A liquid crystal display using a transistor to control the transmission of
light at each individual pixel.
Bit map - Answers The image is composed of a matrix of picture elements, or pixels, which can be
represented as a matrix of bits, called a bit map.
Pixel - Answers The smallest individual picture element. Screens are composed of hundreds of
thousands to millions of pixels, organized in a matrix.
Integrated circuit - Answers Also called a chip. A device combining dozens to millions of transistors.
Central processor unit (CPU) - 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 - Answers The component of the processor that performs arithmetic operations.
Control - Answers The component of the processor that commands the datapath, memory, and I/O
devices according to the instructions of the program.
Memory - 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 memory (DRAM) - 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 - Answers A small, fast memory that acts as a buffer for slower, larger memory.
Static random access memory (SRAM) - Answers Also memory built as an integrated circuit, but faster
and less dense than DRAM.
Instruction set architecture - 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, register, memory access, I/O,
and so on.
Application binary interface (ABI) - Answers The user portion of the instruction set plus the operating
system interfaces used by the application programmers. It defines a standard for binary portability
across computers.
Implementation - Answers Hardware that obeys the architecture abstraction.
The Big Picture - Answers Both hardware and software consist of hierarchical layers using abstraction,
with each lower layer hiding details from the level above. One key interface between the levels of
abstraction is the instruction set architecture—the interface between the hardware and low-level
Server - Answers A computer used for running larger programs for multiple users, often simultaneously,
and typically accessed via a network.
Supercomputer - 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. Also a form of server.
Embedded computer - Answers A computer inside another device used for running one predetermined
application or collection of software.
Personal mobile devices (PMDs) - 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 tablets.
Cloud computing - 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) - 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.
Multicore microprocessor - Answers A microprocessor containing multiple processors ("cores") in a
single integrated circuit.
Terabyte (TB) - Answers Originally 2^40 bytes, although communications and secondary storage systems
developers started using the term to mean 10^12 bytes. To reduce confusion, we now use the term
tebibyte (TiB) for 2^40 bytes, defining terabyte (TB) to mean 10^12 bytes.
Moore's Law - Answers states that integrated circuit resources double every 18-24 months.
Abstractions - Answers to characterize the design at different levels of representation; lower-level
details are hidden to offer a simpler model at higher levels.
Common case - Answers fast will tend to enhance performance better than optimizing the rare case.
Parallel - Answers Computer architects have offered designs that get more performance by computing
operations in parallel.
Pipelining - Answers which moves multiple operations through hardware unites that each do a piece of
an operation, akin to water flowing through a pipeline.
Prediction - Answers In some cases it can be faster on average to guess and 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 - Answers Architects have found that they can address conflicting demands of
fast, large, and cheap memory with a hierarchy of memories, with the fastest, smaller, and most
expensive memory per bit at the top of the hierarchy and the slowest, largest, and cheapest per bit at
the bottom.
Dependable - Answers Since any physical device can fail, we make systems dependable by including
redundant components that can take over when a failure occurs and to help detect failures.
Systems software - Answers Software that provides services that are commonly useful, including
operating systems, compilers, loaders, and assemblers.
Operating system - Answers Supervising program that manages the resources of a computer for the
benefit of the programs that run on that computer.
Compiler - Answers A program that translates high-level language statements into assembly language
statements.
Binary digit - Answers Also called a bit. One of the two numbers in base 2 (0 or 1) that are the
components of information.
Instruction - Answers A command that computer hardware understands and obeys.
Assembler - Answers A program that translate a symbolic version of instructions into the binary version.
Assembly language - Answers A symbolic representation of machine instructions.
Machine language - Answers A binary representation of machine instructions.
High-level programming language - 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 - Answers A mechanism through which the computer is fed information, such as a
keyboard.
Output device - Answers A mechanism that conveys the result of a computation to a user, such as a
display, or to another computer.
The Big Picture - Answers The five classic components of a computer are input, output, memory,
datapath, and control, with the last two sometimes combined and called the processor. This
organization is independent of hardware technology: you can place every piece of every computer, past
and present, into one of these five categories.
Liquid crystal display - Answers A display technology using a thin layer of liquid polymers that can be
used to transmit or block light according to whether a charge is applied.
, Active matrix display - Answers A liquid crystal display using a transistor to control the transmission of
light at each individual pixel.
Bit map - Answers The image is composed of a matrix of picture elements, or pixels, which can be
represented as a matrix of bits, called a bit map.
Pixel - Answers The smallest individual picture element. Screens are composed of hundreds of
thousands to millions of pixels, organized in a matrix.
Integrated circuit - Answers Also called a chip. A device combining dozens to millions of transistors.
Central processor unit (CPU) - 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 - Answers The component of the processor that performs arithmetic operations.
Control - Answers The component of the processor that commands the datapath, memory, and I/O
devices according to the instructions of the program.
Memory - 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 memory (DRAM) - 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 - Answers A small, fast memory that acts as a buffer for slower, larger memory.
Static random access memory (SRAM) - Answers Also memory built as an integrated circuit, but faster
and less dense than DRAM.
Instruction set architecture - 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, register, memory access, I/O,
and so on.
Application binary interface (ABI) - Answers The user portion of the instruction set plus the operating
system interfaces used by the application programmers. It defines a standard for binary portability
across computers.
Implementation - Answers Hardware that obeys the architecture abstraction.
The Big Picture - Answers Both hardware and software consist of hierarchical layers using abstraction,
with each lower layer hiding details from the level above. One key interface between the levels of
abstraction is the instruction set architecture—the interface between the hardware and low-level
