2.1.5 Concurrent parts of problems and trade-offs of concurrent processing Quiz: OCR Computer Science, Unit 6

The 20 questions

1. Which term describes executing multiple tasks by overlapping or interleaving their execution?

   • Concurrent processing
   • Sequential processing
   • Iterative processing
   • Recursive processing

2. What hardware feature is required to achieve true parallel execution of concurrent tasks?

   • Optical storage
   • Larger cache size
   • Higher clock speed
   • Multiple processor cores

3. Why can a web server handle multiple user requests concurrently?

   • Requests use recursion
   • Memory is unlimited
   • Data is sequential
   • Requests are independent

4. What issue occurs when two threads access shared data without proper synchronisation?

   • Infinite loop
   • Deadlock
   • Race condition
   • Stack overflow

5. What situation occurs when two concurrent threads each wait for resources held by the other?

   • Livelock
   • Starvation
   • Race condition
   • Deadlock

6. What is a main trade-off of introducing concurrent processing into software?

   • Slower clock speed
   • Reduced processor usage
   • Lower memory usage
   • Increased code complexity

7. Why can individual row additions in matrix addition be computed concurrently?

   • No data dependency
   • Sequential dependencies
   • High memory capacity
   • Recursive structure

8. What mechanism is used to coordinate thread execution and access to shared resources?

   • Pipelining
   • Decomposition
   • Abstraction
   • Synchronisation

9. Why can video rendering software process individual video frames concurrently?

   • Frames use iteration
   • Frames are independent
   • Frames share variables
   • Video is analog

10. What term describes the performance overhead of switching between concurrent threads?

    • Garbage collection
    • Thread pooling
    • Context switching
    • Branch prediction

11. Why must order ID assignment in an online shop be processed sequentially?

    • High bandwidth
    • Lack of RAM
    • Order ID dependency
    • Multi-core hardware

12. What occurs when a thread is permanently denied the resources needed to execute?

    • Context switching
    • Starvation
    • Deadlock
    • Pipelining

13. How does concurrent processing improve the user experience in graphical applications?

    • Decreases total RAM
    • Increases screen resolution
    • Maintains user responsiveness
    • Elimination of errors

14. Which object prevents multiple threads from accessing a critical section simultaneously?

    • Array
    • Mutex
    • Accumulator
    • Pointer

15. Why is web crawling suitable for concurrent processing across millions of websites?

    • Pages use recursion
    • Websites share memory
    • Websites are independent
    • Links are linear

16. What is the term for code that accesses shared resources and requires single-thread execution?

    • Global scope
    • Recursive block
    • Interrupt vector
    • Critical section

17. Why does doubling processor cores not double execution speed for concurrent software?

    • Communication overhead
    • Binary storage limits
    • Syntax error accumulation
    • Core clock failure

18. What software trade-off makes bugs in concurrent programs notoriously difficult to reproduce?

    • High code abstraction
    • Linear execution order
    • Static memory allocation
    • Non-deterministic execution

19. Which architecture approach eliminates race conditions by preventing concurrent tasks from sharing memory?

    • Instruction pipelining
    • Global variables
    • Shared memory
    • Message passing

20. What type of dependency exists when one task requires the output data of another task?

    • Resource dependency
    • Control dependency
    • Hardware dependency
    • Data dependency

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