Computer Awareness Mixed Quiz: Set 25

The correct answer is C, TIFRAC. TIFRAC, the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Automatic Calculator, was the first computer designed and built within India; it was commissioned in 1960 and Jawaharlal Nehru gave it that name. Option B is wrong because the HEC-2M, installed at the Indian Statistical Institute in Kolkata in the mid-1950s, was the first computer in India but was imported from Britain rather than built here. Option A is wrong because PARAM 8000 of 1991 was India’s first indigenous supercomputer, built by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing under Vijay Bhatkar, three decades later. Option D is wrong because SIDDHARTH was an early Indian minicomputer of the 1970s, not the first machine. Remember the order of the Indian firsts: HEC-2M imported, TIFRAC built here, PARAM 8000 the first supercomputer.

The correct answer is B, OR. Read the table row by row. The output is 0 only when both inputs are 0, and it is 1 in the other three rows, including the row where both inputs are 1. That is exactly the rule of an OR gate, which gives 1 when at least one input is 1 and behaves like two switches wired in parallel. A is wrong because a NOT gate has only one input and so cannot have a table with two input columns at all. C is wrong because an XOR gate responds only to a difference between its inputs, so its last row, with both inputs 1, would give 0 and not 1; this is the one row that separates OR from XOR and the reason the distractor is offered. D is wrong because an AND gate gives 1 only in the last row and 0 in the first three, which is the mirror image of the table shown.

The correct answer is C, CMOS battery. CMOS stands for complementary metal oxide semiconductor, and a small chip of that type on the motherboard stores the BIOS setup values such as the boot order, the date and the time. Because that chip is volatile, a coin-sized lithium cell, usually the CR2032, keeps it powered when the computer is switched off; when this cell fails, the machine forgets the time and the BIOS settings at every restart. A is wrong because the SMPS, or switched mode power supply, converts alternating mains current into the regulated direct current the board needs, and is not a battery. B is wrong because a UPS battery sits outside the cabinet and keeps the whole computer running during a power cut. D is wrong because cache memory needs no battery of its own; it is powered along with the processor and loses its contents when the machine is off.

The correct answer is B, Datasheet. In a database such as Microsoft Access, the view that shows a table as rows and columns, looking like a spreadsheet grid, is called Datasheet view. Each row of that grid is one record and each column is one field, and the names along the top come from the field names set in Design view. Datasheet view lets you type data straight in, sort it, filter it and widen columns, while Design view is where the data type, field size and primary key are fixed. Queries and forms can also be opened in Datasheet view, so the name belongs to the display format, not to one object. Option A is wrong because a record is a single row of the grid, one complete entry, not the grid itself. Option C is wrong because a query is a saved question that pulls out selected rows; it is a database object. Option D is wrong because 'Tables' names the objects being displayed, while the question asks what the grid-like view is called. Exam tip: Access tables have two main views — Datasheet for data, Design for structure.

The correct answer is B, the sum of the complements. De Morgan's second theorem states that NOT of A AND B equals NOT A OR NOT B. The working rule is to break the bar and change the sign, so a dot under a complement becomes a plus once the complement is distributed over the variables. A is wrong because the product of the complements is the result of the first theorem, which applies to the complement of a sum, not of a product; swapping the two theorems is the standard error in this question. C is wrong because complementing an expression must change it unless the expression is a constant, and the product of A and B is not its own complement. D is wrong because the value depends on the inputs: when A is 1 and B is 1 the expression is 0, so it cannot always be 1. Both theorems together make NAND-only and NOR-only design possible.

The correct answer is C, Graphics. In multimedia, graphics is the broad word for every kind of visual element a computer can store and show, so drawings, photographs, movies and simulations all sit inside it. The usual list of multimedia elements is text, graphics, audio, video and animation, and in that list graphics covers both pictures made by hand on the screen and pictures captured from the real world. Graphics are stored either as bitmaps, made of pixels, as in a JPEG or BMP photograph, or as vectors, made of lines and curves described by equations, as in a drawing or a CAD file. A is wrong because animation is only one kind of visual, a sequence of frames shown fast enough to look like movement. B is wrong because an image is a single still picture, so it is narrower than the four things listed. D is wrong because text is made of characters and carries no picture. Exam tip: multimedia elements are text, graphics, audio, video and animation; bitmap graphics use pixels, vector graphics use equations.

The correct answer is B, New Technology File System. NTFS was introduced with Windows NT and is now the normal file system for the disk on which Windows itself is installed, because it supports file and folder permissions, encryption, compression, journaling that helps recovery after a crash, and very large volumes and files. A is wrong because NTFS is a disk file system and not a protocol for transferring files over a network; that work is done by FTP and by network file sharing. C and D are wrong because no such file systems exist; they are invented expansions placed in the options. For comparison, FAT32 cannot hold a single file larger than four gigabytes, and exFAT is preferred on pen drives and memory cards because it crosses that limit and works on more than one operating system.

The correct answer is B, Charles Babbage. Babbage designed the Difference Engine in 1822 and then the Analytical Engine, a general purpose mechanical computer with a store for numbers, a mill for arithmetic, punched card input and printed output, which is the plan of a modern computer drawn a century before one could be built; for that he is called the father of the computer. Option A is wrong because Blaise Pascal built the Pascaline of 1642, a mechanical adding machine but not a programmable computer. Option C is wrong because Alan Turing is called the father of computer science for the theoretical Turing machine of 1936. Option D is wrong because John von Neumann gave the stored program concept and the architecture named after him, a later contribution.

The correct answer is B, RAM is volatile and ROM is non-volatile. Random Access Memory is the working memory in which the operating system, the running programs and the data in use are held, and everything in it is lost the moment the power supply stops, which is exactly what volatile means. Read Only Memory keeps its contents permanently without power, which is why the BIOS firmware that starts the machine is placed there. A is wrong because it treats ROM as volatile, which would make it impossible for a computer to know how to boot. C is wrong because it reverses the two properties, and this reversal is the most common trap set in such questions. D is wrong because RAM cannot be non-volatile; its two usual forms, dynamic RAM in the DIMM slots and static RAM used as cache, both need continuous power, and dynamic RAM even needs constant refreshing.

The correct answer is B, Meta Search Engine. A meta search engine keeps no index of its own. It hands the user's query to several other search engines at the same time, collects what they send back, removes repeated hits and shows one merged list. Because it borrows from many sources, a single search covers more of the web than any one engine would on its own. Dogpile and Startpage work in this way. A is wrong because advanced search only means the extra filters an ordinary engine offers, such as date, file type or exact phrase, while it still searches its own index. C is wrong because search tool is a loose term for any utility that finds files or text, not a defined class of engine. D is wrong because Boolean searching refers to using AND, OR and NOT inside one engine, not to querying other engines. Exam tip: meta means about, so a meta search engine searches the searchers.

The correct answer is C, when the two inputs are different. An exclusive OR gate is a difference detector: it gives 1 for the combinations 0 and 1 or 1 and 0, and gives 0 when the inputs agree. It is sometimes read as either but not both. A is wrong because two inputs of 1 give an output of 0 in an XOR gate; that row is exactly what distinguishes it from an ordinary OR gate, which would give 1. B is wrong because two inputs of 0 also agree, so the output is again 0. D is wrong because an output of 1 for identical inputs describes the XNOR gate, the complement of XOR, which works as an equality detector and is used to compare two binary numbers bit by bit. In a half adder, the XOR gate supplies the sum bit while the AND gate supplies the carry.

The correct answer is A, Ability to operate 24/7. An online store is a website or an app and not a shop with shutters, so it can take orders at any hour of any day, and that round-the-clock selling is one of the clear gains of e-commerce. The other gains follow from the same fact: a seller reaches buyers anywhere in the country without opening branches, keeps costs down because no showroom or large sales staff is needed, and can study a customer's past orders to suggest goods that suit them. Payment is made by card, net banking or UPI, and the order can be tracked until delivery. B is wrong because e-commerce widens reach instead of limiting it, carrying a small seller to a national market. C is wrong because online sellers personalise the experience closely, using browsing and purchase history to recommend products. D is wrong because operational costs usually fall, since rent, electricity and counter staff are saved. Exam tip: the gains of e-commerce are round-the-clock service, wider reach, lower costs and personalised offers.

The correct answer is C, colon. Windows reserves nine characters for paths, drives and wildcards and will not accept them in a file name: the backslash, the forward slash, the colon, the asterisk, the question mark, the double quotation mark, the less than and greater than signs, and the vertical bar. The colon is reserved because it follows a drive letter, as in C colon. A is wrong because a hyphen is allowed and is commonly used to separate words in a file name. B is wrong because the underscore is allowed and is the usual substitute for a space in names meant for the web. D is wrong because the full stop is allowed and is in fact required, since the part after the last full stop is the extension that tells Windows which program should open the file.

The correct answer is B, Charles Babbage. He designed the Difference Engine and then the Analytical Engine, and the Analytical Engine contained the logical parts of a modern computer: a store for holding numbers, a mill for calculating, punched-card input and a printed output. He never finished building it, but the design is the reason he carries the title.

Option A, Blaise Pascal, built the Pascaline in 1642, the first mechanical adding machine, so he belongs to the earlier age of calculators rather than computers. Option C, Alan Turing, gave the theory of computation and the Turing machine and is called the father of computer science and of artificial intelligence, which is a different title from the one asked here. Option D, Herman Hollerith, built the punched-card tabulating machine used for the American census and founded the firm that later became IBM. Examiners rotate these four names in the options, so fix one phrase to each.

The correct answer is D, a variable in its complemented or uncomplemented form. In Boolean algebra a literal is any single appearance of a variable in an expression, whether it appears plain or with a bar over it. The count of literals is used to measure how costly an expression is, because each literal becomes one input line to a gate, so simplification is judged by how many literals it removes. A is wrong because restricting the term to the plain form would leave no name for the complemented appearance, which is equally a literal. C is wrong for the mirror reason: the complemented form is not the only kind. B is wrong because, read as it stands, it suggests a variable taken together with its complement, which describes a pair rather than the single appearance that a literal is. Remember that a term such as A AND NOT B contains two literals and two variables.

The correct answer is B, Point to Point Protocol. PPP is a data-link layer protocol that carries data directly between two nodes over a single link, such as a telephone line, a leased line or a serial cable. It became familiar through dial-up internet access, where a home computer used PPP to reach its service provider, and it survives in broadband as PPPoE, that is PPP over Ethernet. PPP does three jobs: it frames the data, it can authenticate the user through PAP or CHAP, and it can carry several network protocols over the same link. It replaced the older SLIP, which offered neither error checking nor authentication. Option A is wrong because the first word of the name is Point, not Packet. Option C is wrong because the second word is also Point, so packet appears nowhere in the name. Option D is wrong because it replaces both words and is not a protocol name at all. Exam tip: PPP joins exactly two points at the data-link layer, and PPPoE is its broadband form.

The correct answer is A, subdirectory. Because a folder, also called a directory, can contain further folders, the storage of a drive takes the shape of a tree, and a folder held within another is its subdirectory or subfolder. B is wrong because the root directory is the topmost folder of a drive, the one that contains everything else on it and has no parent; it is written as C colon backslash. C is wrong because a partition is a logically separated part of a physical disk that the operating system treats as a drive with its own letter, not a folder. D is wrong because a cluster is the smallest unit of disk space that a file system allots to a file, a hardware-level block of sectors; a small file still occupies one whole cluster, which is why the size on disk can exceed the size of the file.

The correct answer is B, George Boole, the English mathematician who in the middle of the nineteenth century showed that logical reasoning could be written as an algebra on just two values, true and false. The system was a work of pure mathematics for decades until Claude Shannon showed that it described electrical switching circuits exactly, which opened the way to digital computing. A is wrong because Charles Babbage designed the Difference Engine and the Analytical Engine and is called the father of the computer, but he worked on mechanical calculation, not on logic as algebra. C is wrong because Blaise Pascal built an early mechanical adding machine, the Pascaline, in the seventeenth century. D is wrong because John von Neumann gave the stored-program architecture in which instructions and data share the same memory, a much later contribution. Pair the names carefully: Boole for the algebra, Shannon for its use in circuits, Karnaugh for the simplification map.

The correct answer is B, clipboard. The clipboard is the area of main memory in which Windows keeps whatever was last cut or copied, so that it can be pasted into the same program or another one; since it lives in volatile memory, its contents are lost when the computer is shut down or restarted. A is wrong because cache memory is the small, very fast memory between the processor and the main memory that stores frequently used instructions and data to speed up processing. C is wrong because a register is a storage location inside the processor itself, holding a single operand or address during execution. D is wrong because buffering is the general technique of holding data while it moves between devices of different speeds, as when a video is loaded ahead of playing; it is not the named store used by cut, copy and paste.

The correct answer is C, the XOR gate. Adding two single bits gives a sum that is 1 when exactly one of the bits is 1 and 0 when both are 0 or both are 1, which is precisely the XOR rule; so in a half adder the sum line comes from an XOR gate. A is wrong because the AND gate in a half adder produces the carry, which is 1 only when both bits are 1, and swapping sum with carry is the usual mistake here. B is wrong because an OR gate would wrongly give a sum of 1 when both bits are 1, and in any case the OR gate appears only in the full adder, where it combines the two carry signals. D is wrong because a NOR gate plays no part in the standard half adder at all. Remember the full sentence: half adder equals XOR for sum plus AND for carry, two inputs, no carry in.