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1. What is the technique of executing instructions in parallel called? 2. Which

ID: 3637585 • Letter: 1

Question

1. What is the technique of executing instructions in parallel called?

2. Which component of an operating system is responsible for switching control between tasks?

3. Identify three types of segments that would be referenced by segment registers.

4. Name two RISC-like features incorporated by Intel into the IA-32 family.

5. List at least five types of ports found on a typical PC motherboard.

6. Which two 32-bit registers are known as extended index registers?
a. SI, DI
b. EAX, EBX
c. ESI, EDI
d. EBP, ESP

7. What is the name of the lowest 8 bits of the EDX register?
a. DL
b. DH
c. DX
d. none of the above

8. How much memory can be addressed in Protected mode?
a. 640 K
b. 1 MB
c. 16 MB
d. 4 GB

9. What special feature makes VRAM better-suited to use with a video adapter than DRAM? a. VRAM uses static RAM
b. VRAM is dual-ported
c. VRAM does not require a refresh cycle
d. VRAM holds its memory when power is turned off

10. Which of the following linear addresses matches the segment-offset address 08F0:0200?
a. 09100h
b. 09200h
c. 0AF0h
d. 08F2h

11. Which type of I/O device uses the 16550 UART chip?
a. USB port
b. printer port
c. serial port
d. parallel port

12. How is Virtual-8086 mode similar to Real-address mode?
a. permits the use of virtual memory (paging)
b. uses a segment descriptor table to track memory usage
c. uses only 16-bit registers for input-output
d. simulates 8086-based computer running in Real-address mode

13. High-speed memory that reduces the frequency of access by the CPU to conventional memory is called
a. local memory
b. cache memory
c. system memory
d. virtual memory

14. Why are device drivers needed, given that BIOS programs can do the same task?
a. device drivers allow for the introduction of new devices
b. device drivers have faster performance than BIOS programs
c. BIOS programs are only used by the operating system in Real-address mode
d. device drivers have more direct access to hardware than BIOS programs

15. If you wanted to find out whether an integer contained an even number of 1 bits, which status flag would be useful?
a. carry
b. overflow
c. sign
d. parity

16. The three types of buses connected to the CPU are:
a. data, address, control
b. data, system, address
c. address, control, memory
d. fetch-decode, control, execution

17. If a clock oscillates 10 billion times per second, what is the duration of a single clock cycle?
a. 1 nanosecond
b. 1.0 x 10-9 seconds
c. 1.0 x 1010 seconds
d. 1.0 x 10-10 seconds

18. During which phase of the instruction execution cycle is the program counter incremented?
a. decode
b. execute
c. operand fetch
d. fetch

19. List the three primary steps of the instruction execution cycle, in sequential order:
a. fetch, decode, memory write
b. fetch, memory read, execute
c. decode, fetch, execute
d. fetch, decode, execute

20. Which flag is set when an unsigned value is too large to fit into a destination operand?
a. Sign
b. Carry
c. Overflow
d. Auxiliary Carry

Explanation / Answer

1.

The technique of executing instructions in parallel is called instruction level parallelism.

2.

Kernel is responsible for switching control between tasks in the operating system.

3.

Three types of segments that would be referenced by segment registers are code segment register (CS), stack segment register (SS), data segment registers (DS, ES, FS, GS).

4.

RISC-like features incorporated by Intel into the IA-32 family are pipelining, superscalar.

5.

Some of the ports of a PC motherboard are serial port, parallel port, PS/2 port, USB port, VGA port, Game port, Ethernet port.

6.

a. SI, DI

7.

d. none of the above

8.

b. 1MB

9.

b. dual-ported

10.

a. 09100h

11.

c. serial port

12.

d. simulates 8086-based computer running in Real-address mode

13.

b. cache memory

14.

c. BIOS programs are only used by the operating system in Real-address mode

15.

d. parity

16.

a. data, address, control

17.

d. 1.0 x 10-10 seconds

18.

b. execute

19.

d. fetch, decode, execute

20.

b. Carry