CSS - PMS - CCE - PCS - Basic Computing
Operating Systems
Which deadlock condition requires a cycle of processes, each waiting for a resource held by the next?
A. Starvation
B. Aging
C. Thrashing
D. Circular wait
Correct Answer: D
Circular wait forms a closed chain of resource dependencies.
CSS - PMS - CCE - PCS - Basic Computing
Operating Systems
Which deadlock condition means resources cannot be forcibly taken away and must be released voluntarily?
A. No preemption
B. Circular wait
C. Mutual exclusion
D. Time sharing
Correct Answer: A
No preemption prevents the OS from simply seizing resources to resolve the wait.
CSS - PMS - CCE - PCS - Basic Computing
Operating Systems
Which deadlock condition occurs when a process holds resources while requesting additional resources?
A. Paging
B. Hold and wait
C. No preemption
D. Mutual exclusion only
Correct Answer: B
Hold and wait means a process retains allocated resources while waiting for others.
CSS - PMS - CCE - PCS - Basic Computing
Operating Systems
Which deadlock condition means a resource can be held by only one process at a time?
A. Hold and wait
B. Preemption
C. Mutual exclusion
D. Circular wait
Correct Answer: C
Mutual exclusion makes at least one required resource non-shareable.
CSS - PMS - CCE - PCS - Basic Computing
Operating Systems
Which set contains all four necessary Coffman conditions for deadlock?
A. Paging, segmentation, swapping, caching
B. Authentication, authorization, auditing, encryption
C. FCFS, SJF, RR, priority
D. Mutual exclusion, hold and wait, no preemption, circular wait
Correct Answer: D
Deadlock requires all four Coffman conditions to hold simultaneously.
CSS - PMS - CCE - PCS - Basic Computing
Operating Systems
Which IPC mechanism is commonly used for communication between processes across a network?
A. Socket
B. TLB
C. Page frame
D. Boot record
Correct Answer: A
Sockets provide endpoints for local or network process communication.
CSS - PMS - CCE - PCS - Basic Computing
Operating Systems
Which IPC mechanism is commonly used for a one-way byte stream between related Unix processes?
A. Registry key
B. Pipe
C. Page table
D. Semaphore only
Correct Answer: B
A pipe provides a stream channel often used between related processes or shell commands.
CSS - PMS - CCE - PCS - Basic Computing
Operating Systems
Which IPC mechanism sends discrete units of data through the operating system rather than sharing an address region?
A. Defragmentation
B. Disk formatting
C. Message passing
D. Paging
Correct Answer: C
Message passing lets processes communicate by sending and receiving messages.
CSS - PMS - CCE - PCS - Basic Computing
Operating Systems
Which IPC mechanism usually provides the fastest data exchange because processes can access a common memory region?
A. Email
B. Printer spool
C. Boot sector
D. Shared memory
Correct Answer: D
Shared memory avoids repeated copying through the kernel after setup, but requires synchronization.
CSS - PMS - CCE - PCS - Basic Computing
Operating Systems
Which classic problem uses philosophers and forks to illustrate deadlock and synchronization issues?
A. Dining philosophers problem
B. Producer-only problem
C. Sleeping barber disk algorithm
D. Boot manager problem
Correct Answer: A
Dining philosophers is a standard model for resource allocation, deadlock, and synchronization.
CSS - PMS - CCE - PCS - Basic Computing
Operating Systems
Which classic synchronization problem studies concurrent access when many tasks may read but writers need exclusive access?
A. Shortest-job problem
B. Readers-writers problem
C. Dining philosophers only
D. Page replacement problem
Correct Answer: B
The readers-writers problem explores policies for shared read access and exclusive writing.
CSS - PMS - CCE - PCS - Basic Computing
Operating Systems
Which classic synchronization problem models a finite shared buffer used by producers and consumers?
A. Bootstrapping problem
B. Disk arm problem
C. Bounded-buffer problem
D. Banker's problem
Correct Answer: C
The producer-consumer or bounded-buffer problem illustrates coordination over a finite buffer.
CSS - PMS - CCE - PCS - Basic Computing
Operating Systems
A monitor in operating-system theory is primarily used to:
A. Translate virtual addresses
B. Schedule disk tracks
C. Load the boot sector
D. Encapsulate shared data with synchronized procedures
Correct Answer: D
A monitor is a high-level synchronization construct that controls access to shared state.
CSS - PMS - CCE - PCS - Basic Computing
Operating Systems
Which synchronization primitive may deliberately use busy waiting for very short lock durations?
A. Spinlock
B. File pointer
C. Page frame
D. Bootloader
Correct Answer: A
A spinlock repeatedly checks the lock and can be efficient when waits are expected to be extremely short.
CSS - PMS - CCE - PCS - Basic Computing
Operating Systems
What is busy waiting?
A. Turning off the processor
B. Repeatedly checking a condition while consuming CPU time
C. Waiting on disk with no CPU use
D. Sleeping until an interrupt with no checks
Correct Answer: B
Busy waiting repeatedly tests a condition instead of blocking, consuming processor cycles.
CSS - PMS - CCE - PCS - Basic Computing
Operating Systems
Which semaphore type can represent multiple identical available resources?
A. Spinlock only
B. Page table semaphore
C. Counting semaphore
D. Binary semaphore only
Correct Answer: C
A counting semaphore maintains a count greater than one when several instances of a resource exist.
CSS - PMS - CCE - PCS - Basic Computing
Operating Systems
A binary semaphore can take how many logical states?
A. Four
B. Eight
C. Unlimited only
D. Two
Correct Answer: D
A binary semaphore has two states, commonly represented as 0 and 1.
CSS - PMS - CCE - PCS - Basic Computing
Operating Systems
Which property requires that no more than one process be inside its critical section for the same shared resource at a time?
A. Mutual exclusion
B. Caching
C. Spooling
D. Virtualization
Correct Answer: A
Mutual exclusion prevents simultaneous conflicting access to a critical resource.
CSS - PMS - CCE - PCS - Basic Computing
Operating Systems
Which part of a program accesses shared data and therefore must often be protected from concurrent execution?
A. File extension
B. Critical section
C. Boot sector
D. Page table
Correct Answer: B
A critical section is code that manipulates shared resources and requires synchronization.
CSS - PMS - CCE - PCS - Basic Computing
Operating Systems
Which situation occurs when the output depends on the unpredictable timing of concurrent operations on shared data?
A. Boot failure
B. Disk seek
C. Race condition
D. Page fault
Correct Answer: C
A race condition occurs when unsynchronized concurrent accesses make the result timing-dependent.