Principles of Database Management Lecture 1

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Which statement is NOT CORRECT?

a. The file approach to data management causes the same information to be stored
separately for different applications.
b. In a file approach to data management, the data definitions are included in each
application separately.
c. In a file approach to data management, different applications could be using older and
newer versions of the same data.
d. In a file approach to data management, a change in the structure of a data file is easily
handled because each application has its own data files.
2. Which statement is NOT CORRECT?

a. In a database approach, applications don’t have their own files, but all applications
access the same version of the data by interfacing with the DBMS.
b. In a database approach, the data definitions or metadata are stored in the applications
accessing the data.
c. In a database approach, there is typically less storage needed compared to the file
approach.
d. In a database approach, maintenance of data and metadata is easier.
3. Which of the following statements is NOT CORRECT?

a. A file-based approach to data management will easily lead to inconsistent data.

b. A file-based approach to data management facilitates concurrency control.
c. A file-based approach to data management incurs a strong dependency between the
applications and the data
d. A file-based approach to data management causes duplicate information, which leads to
a waste of storage resources.
4. Which statement is NOT CORRECT?

a. In a file-based approach, every application had its own query and access procedures,
even if they wanted to access the same data.
b. SQL is a database language to manage DBMSs without having to write a substantial
amount of programming code.
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c. SQL is a database language that focusses on how to access and retrieve the data.
d. SQL is a database language that allows different applications to access different subsets
of the data necessary for each application.
5. Which of the following statements is correct?

a. It is more cumbersome to query a database system than a file-based system.

b. The file-based approach uses metadata to define the data. These definitions are then
stored in a catalog.
c. A database approach to data management uses the available storage in a more efficient
manner.
d. The maintenance of a file-based system is much easier than the maintenance of a
database system.
6. Which statement is NOT CORRECT?

a. In a conceptual data model, the data requirements from the business should be captured
and modeled.
b. A conceptual data model is implementation dependent.
c. A logical data model translates the conceptual data model to a specific implementation
environment.
d. Examples of implementations of logical data models are hierarchical, CODASYL, relational
or object-oriented models.
7. Which of the following statements is correct?

a. To communicate with the business user, mainly the logical data model is used.
b. A database state contains the description of the database data and is stored in the
catalog.
c. The logical data model is implementation independent.
d. The internal data model represents the data’s physical storage details.
8. Complete the following sentence, choosing the right words on place A and B. A …A… data

model is the mapping of a …B… data model to a model that describes which data is stored

where and in what format.

a. A: internal, B: logical

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b. A: conceptual, B: internal
c. A: logical, B: internal
d. A: logical, B: conceptual
9. What concept specifies the various data items, their characteristics and relationships,

constraints, storage details, etc. and is specified during the database design?

a. Database model
b. Catalog
c. Database state
d. None of the above
10. Which statement is right about the database state?

a. The database state represents the data in the database when the database is first
created.
b. The database state changes when data is updated or removed.
c. The database state specifies the various data items, their characteristics and
relationships and is specified during the database design.
d. The database state is stored in the catalog.
11. Which of the following statements is NOT CORRECT?

a. The external layer of a database contains the logical and conceptual data model.
b. Changes in any of the layers in the three-layer architecture should minimally impact the
other layers.
c. The internal data model is situated in the internal layer.
d. Views can be defined for a particular application or a user group. This facilitates control
of data access and security.
12. Complete this sentence: In the three-layer architecture, between the external layer and the

conceptual/logical layer, there is …

a. Physical data independence

b. Logical data independence
c. No independence, they are basically the same thing
d. The internal layer

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13. Which of the following statements is NOT CORRECT?

a. To cater for data independence, interfaces between the three layers of the database
architecture should be provided.
b. Physical data independence means that changes in the data storage specifications should
not impact the applications, the defined views nor the logical data model.
c. Logical data independence means that changes in the logical or conceptual data model
should not impact the data storage specifications.
d. Only structured data can be described in a formal logical data model.
14. Statement A: The middle layer of the three-layer architecture consists of both the conceptual

data model and the logical data model. The logical data model is physically implemented in

the internal layer.

Statement B: The top level of the three-layer architecture is the external layer. Views for one

or more applications always offer a window on the complete logical model.

a. Only sentence A is right

b. Only sentence B is right
c. Sentence A and B are right
d. Neither A or B is right
15. Statement A: DDL is the language used to define the logical data model, but no other data

models.

Statement B: SQL is a DML language to retrieve, insert, delete and modify data. It is stored in

the catalog.

Which sentence(s) is/are right?

a. Only A
b. Only B
c. A and B
d. Neither A or B

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16. Statement A: Physical data independence implies that neither the applications, nor the views

or logical data model must be changed when changes are made to the data storage

specifications in the internal data model.

Statement B: Logical data independence implies that software applications are minimally

affected by changes in the conceptual or logical data model.

Which sentence(s) is/are right?

a. Only A
b. Only B
c. A and B
d. Neither A or B
17. Which of the following statements is NOT CORRECT

a. The three KPIs of a DBMS are response time, throughput rate and space utilization.
b. The response time is the time needed to build the conceptual data model.
c. The throughput rate is the number of transactions a DBMS can process per unit of time.
d. Space utilization is the space utilized to store raw data and metadata.
18. Consider the following statements:

 ‘A book’s ISBN should consist of 13 integers’ is a semantic rule.

 ‘A book should have at least one author’ is a syntactic rule.

Which of these statements is correct?

a. Both statements are correct.

b. Statement i is correct, but statement ii is not correct.
c. Statement ii is correct but statement i is not correct.
d. Both statements are not correct.
19. Which of the following statements is NOT CORRECT?

a. ACID stands for Availability, Consistency, Isolation and Durability.

b. Durability means that effects of each successful transaction can be made permanent.
c. Consistency assures that the database is consistent at all times.

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d. Isolation ensures that the effect of concurrent transactions should be the same as if they
had been executed in isolation.

20. Consider the following two transactions:

Time Transaction 1 Transaction 2 Balance

t1 Begin transaction $2000
t2 Read(Balance) Begin transaction
t3 Balance = Balance + Read(Balance)
$1000
t4 Write(Balance) Balance = Balance + $10
000
t5 End transaction Write(Balance)
t6 End transaction End_balance

Assuming these are the only two transactions occurring in the database at the moment, which of the

following statements is not correct?

a. These transactions result in a lost-update problem.

b. These transactions are not compliant with the ACID properties.
c. The ‘End_balance’ is equal to $12,000.
d. The ‘End_balance’ is equal to $13,000.

Sober Scenario
1. What type of data could be useful to store for Sober?

2. Would you recommend Sober to store their data into files or a database? Why?

3. Can you work out an example three layer database architecture for Sober? Make sure to

a. give examples about information that should be stored in the conceptual schema

b. give examples of views and their target users/applications

c. give recommendations for the physical organization of the data

4. What job profiles should Sober consider hiring when investing in a database?

5. Does Sober need a data dictionary (catalog)? If yes, why?

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6. Give an example of a syntactical and semantical integrity rule for Sober’s data? Where would

you store these integrity rules?

7. Is concurrency control relevant for Sober? If yes, why?

8. Would it make sense for Sober to make use of analytics? If yes, give some examples.