Lesson 1.3.4b

1.3.4b Search engine indexing and the PageRank algorithm Quiz: OCR Computer Science, Unit 3

20 questions

Written by Revision Ninja · Last reviewed 11 October 2026

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Lesson 1.3.4b, Search engine indexing and the PageRank algorithm: 20 multiple choice questions for the OCR Computer Science (H446), Unit 3: Exchanging data, written with Revision Ninja.

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The 20 questions

  1. What data structure maps words directly to the documents in which they appear?

    • Inverted index
    • Binary tree
    • Linked list
    • Hash table

  2. Which algorithm uses inbound links to evaluate the relative importance of web pages?

    • Kruskal's
    • Dijkstra's
    • PageRank
    • A* search

  3. A web page receives links from high-ranking sites. What happens to its PageRank score?

    • It increases
    • It doubles instantly
    • It stays zero
    • It decreases

  4. What term describes a link on another website pointing directly to your web page?

    • Internal link
    • Backlink
    • Hyperlink
    • Outbound link

  5. If Page A links to five other pages, what proportion of its rank passes to each?

    • Five times
    • One half
    • All of it
    • One fifth

  6. What does the damping factor in the PageRank formula represent?

    • Server response time
    • User click probability
    • Page loading speed
    • Total outbound links

  7. What is the typical value assigned to the damping factor in the PageRank algorithm?

    • 1.00
    • 0.50
    • 0.85
    • 0.15

  8. Which graph type represents web pages as nodes and directed hyperlinks as edges?

    • Directed graph
    • Weighted tree
    • Bipartite graph
    • Undirected graph

  9. Page A has 4 outbound links and Page Rank 0.8. What rank does each target receive?

    • 0.2
    • 0.4
    • 0.8
    • 3.2

  10. What occurs during the building of a search engine's database index?

    • Executing JavaScript
    • Parsing page text
    • Encrypting passwords
    • Compiling source code

  11. Why is PageRank calculated iteratively across all web pages on the internet?

    • Servers timeout quickly
    • Ranks depend recursively
    • Nodes are disconnected
    • Memory is limited

  12. What happens to the rank passed per link when a webpage adds more outbound links?

    • Decreases
    • Doubles
    • Increases
    • Removes

  13. What term describes HTML tags that provide search engines with summary metadata about a page?

    • Header tags
    • Anchor tags
    • Meta tags
    • Script tags

  14. Page B has no outbound links. What is Page B called in graph theory terms?

    • Source node
    • Sink node
    • Isolated vertex
    • Root node

  15. In the simplified PageRank equation PR(A) = 1 - d + d(sum), what does PR(A) represent?

    • Domain authority age
    • Probability of dropout
    • Page Rank score
    • Number of links

  16. Which process identifies updated content on previously indexed web pages?

    • Recrawling
    • Defragmentation
    • Snooping
    • Rebooting

  17. What matrix operation can be used to compute PageRank scores across interconnected web pages?

    • Determinant calculation
    • Matrix inversion
    • Matrix multiplication
    • Cross product

  18. Why might two pages with identical content receive vastly different search result positions?

    • Different HTML versions
    • Different IP addresses
    • Different PageRank scores
    • Different file sizes

  19. Which file on a web server instructs search engine crawlers about pages that should not be indexed?

    • robots.txt
    • index.html
    • sitemap.xml
    • .htaccess

  20. What process reduces words to their base or root form during search engine indexing?

    • Tokenisation
    • Parsing
    • Stemming
    • Web scraping

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