ITCS 3160 Database Design and Implementation
Exam Study Guide with Complete Solutions
Candidate Key - ANSWER-Superkey such that no proper subset of itself is also a
superkey
Has no unnecessary attributes
Composite values - ANSWER-Made up of more than one simple attribute
ex. Address is made up of number, street, zip, state, county etc.
Conceptual Model - ANSWER-Input from user environment analysis, has entities,
attributes, relationships.
ER diagrams - Peter Chen
Data dictionary - ANSWER-a file or a set of files that contains a database's metadata
Degrees of Relationships - ANSWER-Cardinality, the number of occurrences in one
entity which are associated (or linked) to the number of occurrences in another
ex, 1-1, 1-M, M-M
Derived Values - ANSWER-Attributes calculated from another attribute
Domain constraint - ANSWER-Limits set of values for attributes
Entity - ANSWER-Part of a user-environment, exists and is distinguishable, can be
physical or abstract
Entity Set - ANSWER-A collection of entities of the same type
ERD - ANSWER-Entity-Relationship Diagram
a data modeling technique that graphically illustrates an information system's entities
and the relationships between those entities
Foreign Keys - ANSWER-a field (or collection of fields) in one table that uniquely
identifies a row of another table or the same table.
logical model - ANSWER-Describes the data in as much detail as possible, without
regard to how they will be physical implemented in the database.
Mini-world - ANSWER-Some part of the real world about which data is stored in a
database. For example, student grades and transcripts at a university.
Mini-scenario for ERDs
Multivalued attributes - ANSWER-Has more than one value at a time for an attribute.
Exam Study Guide with Complete Solutions
Candidate Key - ANSWER-Superkey such that no proper subset of itself is also a
superkey
Has no unnecessary attributes
Composite values - ANSWER-Made up of more than one simple attribute
ex. Address is made up of number, street, zip, state, county etc.
Conceptual Model - ANSWER-Input from user environment analysis, has entities,
attributes, relationships.
ER diagrams - Peter Chen
Data dictionary - ANSWER-a file or a set of files that contains a database's metadata
Degrees of Relationships - ANSWER-Cardinality, the number of occurrences in one
entity which are associated (or linked) to the number of occurrences in another
ex, 1-1, 1-M, M-M
Derived Values - ANSWER-Attributes calculated from another attribute
Domain constraint - ANSWER-Limits set of values for attributes
Entity - ANSWER-Part of a user-environment, exists and is distinguishable, can be
physical or abstract
Entity Set - ANSWER-A collection of entities of the same type
ERD - ANSWER-Entity-Relationship Diagram
a data modeling technique that graphically illustrates an information system's entities
and the relationships between those entities
Foreign Keys - ANSWER-a field (or collection of fields) in one table that uniquely
identifies a row of another table or the same table.
logical model - ANSWER-Describes the data in as much detail as possible, without
regard to how they will be physical implemented in the database.
Mini-world - ANSWER-Some part of the real world about which data is stored in a
database. For example, student grades and transcripts at a university.
Mini-scenario for ERDs
Multivalued attributes - ANSWER-Has more than one value at a time for an attribute.
