S t u d y   G u i d e  

Hardware

  1. What is hardware?
  2. What is the difference between hardware and software?
  3. How does a keyboard work?
  4. How does a keyboard recognize that a key is hit?
  5. What is the ASCII code?
  6. What are output devices?
  7. What are input devices?
  8. Describe the difference between a CRT and a LCD screen?
  9. How does a CRT screen work?
  10. What is the refresh rate, and to which hardware device does it apply?
  11. Describe the different printer types used.
  12. What is the difference between impact and nonimpact printers?
  13. What is the color depth, and where is the word used?
  14. Describe the architecture of a hard disk.
  15. How does a hard disk work?
  16. What are the limitations of floppy disks used as storage devices?
  17. What are track, sector, cluster, and cylinder on a hard disk?
  18. Describe the three parts that determine the disk access speed.
  19. What is the advantage of magnetic tape as storage medium? What is the disadvantage?
  20. Which storage devices are based on magnetism, which are based on optics?
  21. What is the advantage of a DVD over a CD, as far as computers are concerned?
  22. What is Flash memory?
  23. How does a CD store data?
  24. What connects CPU and memory?
  25. What is the difference between primary and secondary storage?
  26. Where are ALU and control unit located?
  27. Is the memory a part of the CPU?
  28. What are registers and where are they located?
  29. Describe the machine cycle.
  30. What is stored in memory if your computer is shut off.
  31. What's a motherboard?
  32. What does the 2.6 GHz of the newest processors tell?
  33. Why is it necessary that the memory is large?
  34. What happens if you run several programs at the same time and the memory is too small to hold all these programs?
  35. Is primary storage or secondary storage volatile?
  36. What is the difference between analog and digital data transmission?
  37. What kind of communication media are known in networks?
  38. What is the task of a protocol in a network?
  39. What is the advantage of using fiber optics for data transmission?
  40. What is a modem?
  41. For what purpose is a modem used?
  42. What is DSL?
  43. Describe how the ethernet protocol works?
  44. What is the difference between a LAN and a WAN?
  45. What is a client/server network?
  46. What is a peer-to-peer network?
  47. What are the mainly used network topologies?

Data Storage and existing Applications

  1. How is your data organized on your computer?
  2. What is the "path" of a data file?
  3. What does the extension of a data file tell?
  4. How do you cut and paste in Microsoft office applications?
  5. What is the task of a operating system?
  6. Does every PC have an operating system?
  7. Which operating systems do you know?
  8. What are two main differences between MS-DOS and Windows
  9. What is a GUI?
  10. What is the BIOS?
  11. What is multitasking?
  12. What are the main features of a spreadsheet program?
  13. What is a formula in Excel. Give an example.
  14. What is the difference between a label and a number in Excel?
  15. What is the difference between the value and the address of a spreadsheet cell?
  16. What is the difference between absolute and relative referencing in Excel? How is it done?
  17. What is conditional formatting in Excel?
  18. What is the difference between a bitmap-based and a vector graphics?
  19. How are curves stored in vector graphics?
  20. What kind of objects do you know in Corel Draw?
  21. What kind of graphics formats do you know?
  22. What is the advantage of gif graphics over bmp graphics?
  23. How does the Lempel-Ziv compression algorithm work?
  24. What is data compression?
  25. Why is data compression useful?
  26. How is a pixel (bitmap based) graphics file stored?
  27. What are the RGB and the CMYK color models?
  28. How is a color encoded in the RGB color model?
  29. What is a mp3 file? What is the advantage over an audio (au) or wave (wav) file?
  30. Which of the following three data formats are compressed: bmp, gif, jpg?
  31. What are tables, forms, and queries in relational databases?
  32. What are records and fields in relational databases?
  33. Except relational databases, what kind of databases do you know?
  34. What are keys in relational databases?
  35. Which objects are related in relational databases: Queries, Tables, or Forms?
  36. What is the difference between primary and secondary key?
  37. What is a one-to-many relationship in a relational database?

Internet, HTML, Encryption

  1. What is TCP/IP. Where is it used?
  2. What is an IP address
  3. What is the difference between a domain name and an IP address?
  4. What is telnet?
  5. What is FTP used for?
  6. Give me the names of three different protocols used in the internet.
  7. What is http?
  8. Tell me the different parts of the URL
  9. Where are Java applets executed? On server or client computer?
  10. What are cookies?
  11. What is a browser? Give two examples of browsers.
  12. What is a plug in in a browser good for?
  13. Where are CGI scripts executed? On server or client computer?
  14. What is SSL? 
  15. How does SSL work? 
  16. What is HTML?
  17. What are HTML tags?
  18. What are attributes for HTML tags?
  19. Does Frontpage produce HTML code?

Security/Privacy/Encryption

  1. Describe the difference between full and incremential backup.
  2. What is a firewall? Where is it used?
  3. Why do some systems require users to have passwords with at least 6 signs, and with at least one nonletter character?
  4. What is a digital signature? How does it work?
  5. What are the main means to restrict access for nonauthorized users in networks?
  6. What is encryption? 
  7. What is the difference between encryption and compression? 
  8. How does Caesar's code encryption work?
  9. What is the problem when using symmetric key encryption? 
  10. What is the advantage for public key (asymmetric key) encryption?
  11. Why is public key encryption so suited for use on the internet? 
  12. What is a computer virus?
  13. How can a program be infected by a computer virus?
  14. How do you prevent getting a computer virus on your computer?
  15. Can you get a computer virus by looking on some HTML page on the internet?
  16. What happens if you visit the yahoo web page between your computer and the yahoo server? Does it also affect computers other than those two?
  17. What is a denial of service (DoS) attack?

Programming Languages

  1. What is a programming language?
  2. What is the difference between machine code, assembly language code, and code in a higher programming language?
  3. What is the advantage of using a higher programming language over using machine code. Are there also disadvantages?
  4. What is an assembler?
  5. What is a compiler?
  6. What is C++?
  7. Give some features of the programming language C++.
  8. Compare the programming languages C++ and Java.
  9. Give me a list of three programming languages.
  10. Which programming language is older? Java or FORTRAN?