Information Systems 12 E238 TEE Questions 2003

---

PART A Multiple Choice Items (15 marks)

Attempt all questions in this part. Each question is worth 1 mark. Each question has only one correct response. For each question select the response that is correct. Signify your answer by circling the label (a, b, c or d) of the correct response. If you change your answer, completely erase your original answer. Questions where two or more responses are selected will score no marks.

---

1. Study the Nassi-Shneiderman diagram below:

Which statement about the algorithm is true?

(a) i and j will always have the same value.
(b) i will always be greater than j.
(c) There will be an endless loop.
(d) The loop will only be executed once.

2. Which of the following control structures would be used to perform a series of statements a number of times?

(a) Sequence
(b) Selection
(c) Case
(d) Iteration

3. Database designers normalise the data to third normal form (3NF). An advantage of doing this is

(a) it reduces the disk space required.
(b) it minimises the number of tables required.
(c) it improves data integrity.
(d) it reduces the time taken to do the design.

4. Study the following table:

Employee No.	Surname	First Name	DOB	Dept Code
122245	Doobree	Edith	26/4/53	C05
235278	Williams	Scott	3/7/80	C02
236889	Cheah	Hoi Shan	17/3/66	C05

Which of the following is a tuple from this table?

(a) 122245, 235278, 236889
(b) 235278, Williams, Scott
(c) Doobree, Williams, Cheah
(d) 236889, Cheah, Hoi Shan, 17/3/66, C05

5. Mr Peters, the Sports teacher, wants to send an information letter about Tennis classes to all the students in year 8 who take Tennis as a sport. Which selection rule will enable him to select these students from the student record database?

(a) (STU_YEAR = 8) AND (STU_SPORT = "Tennis")
(b) (STU_YEAR = 8) OR (STU_SPORT = "Tennis")
(c) (STU_YEAR = 8) AND (STU_SPORT = Tennis)
(d) (STU_YEAR = 8) OR (STU_SPORT = Tennis)

6. In the following Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD) which field is the foreign key?

(a) Order No.
(b) Customer No.
(c) Order Date
(d) There are no foreign keys in this diagram

7. The term LAN topology refers to

(a) the physical or logical layout of the network.
(b) the physical layout of the network.
(c) the location of a network.
(d) the protocol used in a network.

8. A printer on a network does not print a document. You are unfamiliar with the environment and set-up of the network. Which of the following is the last thing you would try to troubleshoot the printer problem?

(a) Verify that the printer is turned on
(b) Verify that the correct driver is installed for the printer
(c) Power off and restart the computer
(d) Attempt to print to the printer using another computer

9. A hub is said to be 10/100Mbps UTP. This means

(a) that the hub can have ten clients who use 100 Mbits per second connections using unshielded twisted pair cables.
(b) that the hub can transmit or receive at 10 or 100 Mbytes per second using unshielded twisted pair cabling.
(c) that the hub can transmit or receive at 10 or 100 Mbits per second using unshielded twisted pair cabling.
(d) that the hub can transmit at 10 Mbits per second and receive at 100 Mbits per second using unshielded twisted pair cabling.

10. Which of the following is typically NOT the role of secondary storage?

(a) Storage for non-memory resident programs
(b) Backup media
(c) Page or swap memory device
(d) High speed memory cache

11. A distributed information system is best described as

(a) computers in different locations within a country.
(b) computers in different countries.
(c) a decentralised system where computers can operate independently.
(d) a decentralised system where processing takes place in one location.

12. Which of the following is the last step/s in the Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC)?

(a) Systems implementation
(b) Systems evaluation and maintenance
(c) Systems documentation
(d) Systems analysis

13. Which of the following best describes a management information system?

(a) Used by lower management for the day-to-day business activities at the operations level.
(b) An application that uses knowledge and rules to perform a task like a human expert
(c) Helps to facilitate communication between people
(d) Used by middle management to summarise and categorise information to get an overview of current business activities

14. Which of the following would be a valid data flow when drawing a Logical Data Flow Diagram?

(a) From an entity to another entity
(b) From a store to another store
(c) From a store to an entity
(d) From a process to another process

15. In a database what is a relation?

(a) A key
(b) An index
(c) A link between two tables
(d) A table

END OF PART A

---

PART B Short Answer (25 Marks)

Answer all questions. Write your responses in the spaces provided in this Question/Answer booklet.

---

16. Describe how indexes are used in databases. (1 mark) (3 lines)

17. Explain what a data dictionary is and how it is used in systems analysis, design and development. (2 marks) (5 lines)

18. What is the difference between a physical and a logical information system? (2 marks) (5 lines)

19. An author can write many books, and each book can have many authors. Draw an entity relationship diagram that represents this situation. It should show:

• Cardinality (Nature of relationships)
• Several possible attributes
• Primary keys (3 marks) (0.5 page available)

20. Why are external entities found in information systems? (1 mark) (3 lines)

21. What is the difference between an open and a closed system? (1 mark) (3 lines)

22. List two physical design components which are part of system design. (1 mark) (3 lines)

23. Describe each of the following terms. (2 marks)

Sequential processing (3 lines)

Distributed processing (3 lines)

24. Define the following terms as they apply to data communications. (2 marks)

WAN (3 lines)

Cellular networks (3 lines)

25. What is firmware? (1 mark) (3 lines)

26. List two advantages and two disadvantages of a 'bottom up' approach to systems development. (2 marks) (5 lines)

27. RS232, ISO 802.3 and X.25 are examples of what? (1 mark) (3 lines)

28. What is the difference between datum and data? (1 mark) (3 lines)

29. Describe what the terms DTE and DCE refer to. (1 mark) (3 lines)

30. What is the difference between a compiler and an interpreter? (1 mark) (3 lines)

31. Define the following terms as they apply to programming languages. (3 marks)

Machine code (3 lines)

Assembler (3 lines)

Fourth Generation Language (4GL) (3 lines)

END OF PART B

---

PART C Extended Answers (60 Marks)

Answer all six questions in Part C. Write your answers in this Question/Answer Booklet using the spaces indicated. Label your answers clearly.

---

32. The Great Travel Agency is a family business that prides itself on excellent customer service. It has a number of friendly and qualified consultants who make holiday bookings for customers. A customer meets with a travel agent from the Great Travel Agency and provides details about a trip such as destination, date, and airline. The travel agent accesses the agency's records for customer details. The airline reservation system is also accessed to view the availability of flights. The travel agent makes the booking and a booking number is allocated for the trip. An itinerary (confirmed flight details) is also printed for the customer.

The total amount for the trip must be paid at the time of booking. The airline ticket is available for collection one week later.

(a) Draw a Context Diagram below for the Great Travel Agency system. (4 marks) (0.5 page available)

(b) Construct a Logical Data Flow Diagram describing the operations of the Great Travel Agency system. (8 marks) (1 page available)

33. The Great Travel Agency would like to benefit from developments in Information Technology.

(a) Suggest two ways they could use Information Technology to reduce processing costs and provide customers with greater options when making holiday bookings. (2 marks) (5 lines)

(b) A computer consultant has suggested that they use the prototyping method for systems development. Explain this term and discuss whether or not it would be appropriate. (2 marks) (5 lines)

(c) The Great Travel Agency changes over to an automated system. State the four methods available for system conversion. Which method would be most suitable for the Great Travel Agency to use in this system’s implementation phase? Give a reason for your choice. (4 marks) (5 lines)

34. The Great Travel Agency keeps a record of their customers and the flights that they take. They can then use that information for repeat customers to ensure a high level of customer service. For example, if a customer flew with Qantas and became a frequent flyer with Qantas, they would probably want to fly with Qantas again. (Frequent Flyer points are based on the total number of kilometres flown and hence must be calculated.) It also mean that the consultant can look up the customer's record and ask them about their latest trip to South America. Basically, they keep information about the customer and the trips they have taken. Remember that a trip can (and usually does) consist of many flights.

(a) Draw the ERD for the Great Travel Agency database. (5 marks) (0.5 page available)

(b) Give the definitions for each of the entities, with possible attributes. Underline the primary key for each entity and indicate any foreign keys with a double underline. (7 marks) (8 lines)

(c) Which attributes would be candidates or possibilities for a secondary index for searching and for speeding up queries? For each attribute you suggest, list the attribute and the table it is in. (2 marks) (5 lines)

35. The Great Travel Agency has acquired offices in a new building across the street, some 30 metres away from their main office, for expansion of their business. They wish to use existing file and application servers located in their main office. They intend to use these servers to supply timely, error free corporate data to the desktop computers in the new building.

(a) What is the best transmission medium to link the buildings together and provide a high speed, error free connection? (Justify your choice.) (2 marks) (5 lines)

(b) If there are many collisions and errors in the network, explain how a device could be utilised to minimise or prevent this occurring. (2 marks) (5 lines)

(c) The company supplying the computers for the new expansion has just called and said that for an extra $25 per computer they can supply a newer mainboard/motherboard that supports higher bus speeds and has more cache embedded on it.

Explain what this could mean to the performance of the computers that use these newer mainboard/motherboards. (2 marks) (5 lines)

36. The Great Travel Agency is now moving its sales onto the Internet. They are going to allow customers to pay for tickets online through the use of a web browser.

(a) Describe two security mechanisms or techniques that they could apply to protect this data. (2 marks) (5 lines)

(b) Users are complaining of slow response times from the Great Travel Agency web site. The internet connection has been tested and is not saturated. It has a reliable and fast connection. The hardware of the servers, as configured, is found to be inadequate for the task. Describe three steps the Great Travel Agency could take to remedy this situation. (3 marks) (5 lines)

37. The following table shows the rainfall each month in a country town. Assume that these values are stored in an array called MonthRain.

JAN	FEB	MAR	APR	MAY	JUN	JUL	AUG	SEP	OCT	NOV	DEC
15	22	13	10	15	16	16	28	25	27	22	16

(a) Write pseudocode using this array to calculate the following:

• the average rainfall during the year;
• the driest month (the one with the least rain).

Your pseudocode should be modular.

Hint: Create a module for each of the requirements (the average, and the driest month) and a calling module that calls each of these modules.

Note: An average is calculated by summing all the values and dividing by the number of items. For example, the average of 4, 6 and 8 is (4 + 6 + 8) = 6. (10 marks) (one page available)

(b) Comment on the advantages and disadvantages of using a modular approach for this programming problem. (5 marks) (8 lines)