C&IT 180

 

Introduction to Systems Design

 

Sample Exam #1


True/False Questions

50 questions @ 1 point each = 50 points

 

1.         An information system is an arrangement of people, data, processes, information presentation, and information technology that interact to collect, process, store, and provide as output the information needed to support the organization.

Answer: True        LOD: Easy        Page: 12  

 

2.         The stakeholders for information systems can be broadly classified into five groups: system owners, system users, system designers, system builders, system analysts, and project managers.

Answer: True        LOD: Easy        Page: 13  

 

3.         An information worker is a person whose jobs include the creation, collection, processing, distribution and use of information.

Answer: True        LOD: Easy        Page: 15  

 

4.         System users are concerned with the functionality the system provides to their jobs and the system's ease of learning and ease of use.

Answer: True        LOD: Easy        Page: 14   

 

5.         A system analyst is a specialist who studies problems and needs of an organization to determine how people, data, processes, and information technology can best accomplish improvements for their business.

Answer: True        LOD: Easy        Page: 16  

 

6.         System builders construct the information systems components based on the design specifications from the system owner.

Answer: False        LOD: Medium        Page: 16  

 

7.         A systems analyst studies the strategic plan and makes recommendations to executive management on how to run the business.

Answer: False        LOD: Medium        Page: 16  

 

8.         Business process redesign (BPR) is the study, analysis and redesign of fundamental business processes to reduce costs and/or improve value-added to the business.

Answer: True        LOD: Easy        Page: 28  

 

9.         Almost without exception, your technical skills, not your communication skills, will be the single biggest factor in your career success or failure as a systems analyst.

Answer: False        LOD: Medium        Page: 21  

 

10.       Ethics is a personal character trait in which an individual understands the difference between "right" and "wrong" and acts accordingly.

 

Answer: True        LOD: Easy        Page: 21  

11.       Back office information systems are ones that support business functions that reach out to customers (or constituents).

Answer: False        LOD: Medium        Page: 60  

 

12.       Information systems architecture is a unifying framework into which various stakeholders with different perspectives can organize and view fundamental building blocks of information systems.

Answer: True        LOD: Medium        Page: 62  

 

13.       The goals of an information system include improvement of business knowledge, business processes business communications services and people collaboration.

Answer: True        LOD: Easy        Page: 62  

 

14.       As information workers, system users capture, store, process and edit data on a daily basis.

Answer: True        LOD: Easy        Page: 66  

 

15.       Functions cannot be further decomposed.

Answer: False        LOD: Medium        Page: 67  

 

16.       All stakeholders of an information system share the same perspective of the system.

Answer: False        LOD: Medium        Page: 62  

 

17.       The challenge in a systems development is to identify, express and analyze business process requirements exclusively in business terms that can be understood by system users.

Answer: True        LOD: Easy        Page: 69  

 

18.       A policy is a step-by-step set of instructions and logic for accomplishing a business procedure.

Answer: False        LOD: Medium        Page: 69  

 

19.       Today, the best-designed systems tend to separate the information system into layers that handle the data, process and interface building blocks in a way that allows them to communicate across the network. The goal of this clean layering approach is to allow any one building block to be replaced with another while having little or no impact on other building blocks.

Answer: True        LOD: Medium        Page: 74  

 

20.       Prototyping is a technique that takes months to complete, but the advantage is that you end up with a complete working model of an information system.

 

Answer: False        LOD: Medium        Page: 70  

 

21.       The logical data flow diagrams specify the technologies to be used for implementation of one or more (possibly all) information systems in terms of data, process, interfaces and how these components interact and communicate across a network.

Answer: False        LOD: Medium             Page: 502  

 

22.       The physical data flow diagrams model the technical and human design decisions to be implemented as part of an information system. They communicate technical choices and other design decisions to those who will actually construct and implement the system.

Answer: True        LOD: Easy             Page: 502  

 

23.       There are five flavors of distributed systems architecture: file server computing; client/server computing; internet-based computing; mainframe computing; and legacy computing.

Answer: False        LOD: Easy             Page: 510  

 

24.       File server architectures are practical for large database applications to be shared by a relatively large number of users.

Answer: False        LOD: Easy             Page: 512  

 

25.       A client/server system is a solution in which the presentation, presentation logic, application logic, data manipulation and data layers are distributed between client PCs and one or more servers.

Answer: True        LOD: Easy             Page: 512  

 

26.       It is important to understand the difference between file server systems and distributed data client/server systems. Both store their actual databases on a server. But only file server systems execute all data manipulation commands to create, read, update and delete records on a server.

Answer: False        LOD: Medium             Page: 515  

        

27.       A distributed data and application client/server system is a solution in which: (1) the data and data manipulation layers are placed on their own server(s); (2) the application logic is placed on its own server; and (3) only the presentation logic and presentation layers are placed on the clients. This is called three-tiered or n-tiered computing.

Answer: True        LOD: Easy             Page: 516  

 

28.       The benefit of the distributed data and application client/server system is that by moving the application logic to its own server, that logic need only be maintained on the server instead of all of the clients.

Answer: True        LOD: Easy             Page: 516  

 

29.       In online processing, a group of transactions are placed in a line for periodic updates to the database at a later point in time.

Answer: False        LOD: Medium             Page: 522  

 

30.       Electronic data interchange (EDI) is the standardized electronic flow of business transactions or data between businesses. Typically, many businesses must commit to a data format to make EDI feasible.

 

Answer: True        LOD: Easy             Page: 525  

 

31.       Preliminary investigation includes those techniques to be used by systems analysts to identify or extract system problems and solution requirements from the user community.

Answer: False        LOD: Medium        Page: 236  

 

32.       Requirements discovery consists of the following activities: (1) problem discovery and analysis; (2) requirements discovery; (3) documenting and analyzing requirements; and (4) requirements management.

Answer: True        LOD: Easy        Page: 238  

 

33.       Fact-finding is the formal process of using research, interviews, questionnaires, sampling and other techniques to collect information about problems, requirements, and preferences.

Answer: True        LOD: Easy        Page: 239  

 

34.       A requirements definition document should consist of the following: (1) functions and services that the system should provide; (2) nonfunctional requirements including the system's features, characteristics, and attributes; (3) constraints that restrict the development of the system or under which the system must operate; and (4) information about other systems the system must operate.

Answer: True        LOD: Easy        Page: 242  

 

35.       Observation is a fact-finding technique wherein the systems analyst either participates in or watches a person perform activities to learn about the system.

Answer: True        LOD: Medium        Page: 245  

 

36.       Good questionnaires are easy to write; the design comes automatically.

Answer: False        LOD: Easy        Page: 249  

 

37.       Interviewing can be used to achieve any or all of the following goals: find facts; verify facts; clarify facts; generate enthusiasm; get the end-user involved; identify the requirements; and solicit ideas and opinions.

Answer: True        LOD: Easy        Page: 250  

 

38.       An interview guide is a list of specific questions the interviewer will ask the interviewee.

Answer: True        LOD: Easy        Page: 252  

 

39.       Three ways to effectively begin an interview are: (1) summarize the apparent problem; (2) ask a critical question; or (3) ask the interviewee for advice or assistance.

Answer: False        LOD: Medium        Page: 252  

 

40.       A disadvantage of discovery prototyping is that users may develop unrealistic expectations based on the performance, reliability and features of the prototype. Prototypes can only simulate system functionality and are incomplete in nature.

Answer: True        LOD: Easy        Page: 257  

 

41.       Use case modeling is the process of modeling a system's users and the activities they perform.

Answer: True        LOD: Medium        Page: 270  

 

42.       A use case diagram graphically depicts the interactions between the system and external systems and users.

Answer: True        LOD: Easy        Page: 271  

 

43.       A use case narrative is a textual description of the business event and describes how the user will interact with the system to accomplish the task.

Answer: True        LOD: Easy        Page: 272  

 

44.       An actor is anything that needs to interact with the system to exchange information.

Answer: True        LOD: Easy        Page: 273  

 

45.       A temporal event is an event triggered by the system itself.

Answer: False        LOD: Easy        Page: 273  

 

46.       An extension use case is a use case that extends the functionality of the original use case and may be invoked many times by other use cases.

Answer: False        LOD: Medium        Page: 274  

 

47.       An abstract use case is available for referencing (or use) by any other use case that requires its functionality.

Answer: True        LOD: Easy        Page: 274  

 

48.       When performing requirements use case modeling, the first step is to identify the business actors.

Answer: True        LOD: Easy        Page: 276  

 

49.       During requirements analysis analysts strive to identify all use cases of the proposed system.

Answer: False        LOD: Medium        Page: 277-278  

 

50.              A business requirements use case captures the interactions with the user in a manner that is free of technology and implementation details.

 

 

Answer: True        LOD: Medium        Page: 278  

 

 

Multiple Choice Questions

25 questions @ 2 points each = 50 points

 

51.       An arrangement of people, data, processes, information presentation, and information technology that interact to support and improve day-to-day operations in a business as well as support the problem-solving and decision making needs of management and users is:


            A)   An information system

            B)   Information technology

            C)   Expert system

            D)   The Internet

            E)   None of the above


Answer: A        LOD: Easy        Page: 12  

 

52.       The people who use or are affected by the information system on a regular basis — capturing, validating, entering, responding to, storing and exchanging data and information are:


            A)   system owners

            B)   system analysts

            C)   system builders

            D)   system users

            E)   none of the above


Answer: D        LOD: Easy        Page: 14  

 

53.       The person who translates system users' business requirements and constraints into technical solutions is a:


            A)   systems designer

            B)   systems builder

            C)   systems user

            D)   network manager

            E)   none of the above


Answer: A        LOD: Medium        Page: 15  

 

54.       The person who constructs the information system components based on the design specifications is a:


            A)   systems designer

            B)   systems builder

            C)   systems user

            D)   network manager

            E)   none of the above


Answer: B        LOD: Easy        Page: 16  

 

55.       The study of a business problem domain to recommend improvements and specify the business requirements for the solution is:


            A)   systems design

            B)   systems analysis

            C)   facilitation

            D)   applications design

            E)   none of the above


Answer: B        LOD: Medium        Page: 39  

 

56.       The goals of an information system are to:


            A)   improve business knowledge

            B)   improve business processes

            C)   improve services

            D)   improve business communications and people collaboration.

            E)   all of the above


Answer: E        LOD: Easy        Page: 62  

 

57.       An information system's architecture is:


            A)   the latest version of the existing computer system

            B)   a new schema for an information system

            C)   structured information technology

            D)   a knowledge based system

            E)   high level framework for understanding different views of the fundamental building blocks of an information system.


Answer: E        LOD: Medium        Page: 45  

 

58.       Primary role of a system owner in a system development project should be to:


            A)   define the vision and scope of the project

            B)   allow for business process redesign

            C)   make sure that the proper technology has been implemented

            D)   have a completely functional executive information systems

            E)   none of the above


Answer: A        LOD: Medium        Page: 64  

 

59.       Business functions are:


            A)   a group of related processes that support the business

            B)   a blue print on how to build an information system

            C)   a well document process to define business goals and objectives

            D)   a methodology that forecasts time

            E)   none of the above


Answer: A        LOD: Medium        Page: 67  

 

60.       Policy can best be defined as:


            A)   step by step set of instructions and logic for accomplishing a business process

            B)   a set of rules that govern a business process

            C)   a users expectations of the processing requirements for a business process

            D)   all of the above

            E)   none of the above


Answer: B        LOD: Easy        Page: 69   

 

61.       The architectural blueprint communicates which of the following design decisions?

            A)   The distribution of stored data across a network

            B)   The technology to be used to interface with other systems

            C)   The technology to be used to implement the user interface

            D)   The integration of any commercial off-the-shelf software

            E)   all of the above

Answer: E        LOD: Easy             Page: 502  

 

62.       Which of the following is NOT an implementation method?