Mixed Deck — All CPSA Topics Flashcards

When designing the building block view of a software system, which of the following is the primary goal of striving for high cohesion within individual building blocks?

Answer: To ensure that a building block is responsible for a single, well-defined purpose.

High cohesion is a software design principle that states that all elements within a module or building block should be strongly related and focused on a single, well-defined task. This enhances readability, maintainability, and reusability.

Which cross-cutting mechanism prevents a slow database query from degrading the responsiveness of unrelated read operations in the same service?

Answer: Bulkhead pattern using separate thread pools or connection pools

The bulkhead pattern isolates resources (threads or connections) for different operation types so that saturation in one pool does not starve another.

What is the most effective way to communicate architectural goals and constraints to a development team?

Answer: Architecture decision records (ADRs) combined with living architecture documentation

ADRs capture the rationale behind constraints while living documentation keeps them current, ensuring developers understand both what the constraints are and why they exist.

Which of the following best describes 'technical debt' from an architectural perspective?

Answer: The future rework cost incurred by choosing an expedient solution over a better approach

Technical debt is the implied future cost of rework resulting from choosing a faster or easier solution now instead of a better long-term approach.

Which design heuristic does the statement 'You should not design for needs that do not yet exist' represent?

Answer: YAGNI (You Aren't Gonna Need It)

YAGNI advises against implementing functionality until it is actually needed, avoiding unnecessary complexity and speculative design.

Which of the following BEST describes 'psychological safety' in a patient safety context?

Answer: A climate where staff feel safe to speak up about errors without fear of punishment

Psychological safety is a team climate where members believe they can speak up, report errors, and raise concerns without fear of retribution or ridicule.

Which tool is most commonly associated with Active Directory enumeration and attack path visualization during internal penetration tests?

Answer: BloodHound

BloodHound collects AD data via SharpHound and visualizes attack paths, identifying the shortest path to Domain Admin through ACL abuse, group memberships, and trust relationships.

Testability as a quality attribute is MOST directly related to which architectural concern?

Answer: Enabling isolation of components so they can be tested independently

Testability requires that components can be observed and controlled in isolation, which directly shapes architectural decisions like separation of concerns.

According to iSAQB, which activity is considered part of 'architecture evaluation'?

Answer: Assessing whether architectural decisions meet stakeholder concerns and quality requirements

Architecture evaluation systematically assesses whether the architecture meets its quality requirements and adequately addresses stakeholder concerns, often using methods like ATAM.

A CPSA architect documents that all services must emit metrics in the Prometheus exposition format. This is an example of enforcing which type of cross-cutting decision?

Answer: Observability standard

Mandating a common metrics format is an observability standard — a cross-cutting decision that ensures all services are uniformly monitorable.

The 'coinsurance clause' in commercial property insurance penalizes the insured when:

Answer: The property is insured for less than a specified percentage of its value

The coinsurance clause requires the insured to carry coverage equal to a stated percentage (commonly 80%) of the property's value or face a penalty at claims time.

In CPSA, Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP) is most directly associated with implementing which type of concern?

Answer: Cross-cutting concerns such as logging and security

AOP was specifically designed to modularize cross-cutting concerns like logging, security, and transaction management that would otherwise be scattered throughout the codebase.

Which strategy best addresses consistency of error responses across all services in a microservices architecture?

Answer: Defining a shared error response schema and enforcing it via an API gateway

A shared error response schema enforced at the API gateway ensures uniform error handling that clients can rely on regardless of which backend service responded.

A designer uses inheritance but the subclass cannot be used wherever the parent class is expected without breaking behavior. Which principle is violated?

Answer: Liskov Substitution Principle

The Liskov Substitution Principle requires that subtype objects must be substitutable for their supertype objects without altering program correctness.

A developer creates a large, general-purpose interface called `IWorker` with methods for `work()`, `eat()`, and `sleep()`. They then create a `Robot` class that implements `IWorker`. The `Robot` can `work()`, but the `eat()` and `sleep()` methods are irrelevant and are implemented by throwing an exception or doing nothing. Which SOLID principle is being violated?

Answer: Interface Segregation Principle

The Interface Segregation Principle (ISP) states that clients should not be forced to depend on methods they do not use. [10, 21] The `Robot` class is forced to implement the `eat()` and `sleep()` methods from the `IWorker` interface even though they are not applicable. [33] The correct approach would be to segregate the 'fat' interface into smaller, more specific ones, like `IWorkable`, `IEatable`, and `ISleepable`. [19, 33]

In a quality scenario for 'modifiability', a realistic stimulus would be:

Answer: A developer needs to add a new payment method to the checkout module

Modifiability scenarios are triggered by change requests, typically from developers, to alter system functionality.

A system uses the Blackboard architectural pattern. Which scenario best fits this style?

Answer: Multiple specialized subsystems collaborate to incrementally solve a complex problem like speech recognition

The Blackboard pattern suits problems where multiple knowledge sources (specialists) contribute partial solutions to a shared data store until a complete solution emerges.

In a large organization, which of the following BEST describes the relationship between enterprise architecture and solution architecture?

Answer: Solution architecture operates within the constraints and standards set by enterprise architecture

Solution architecture defines the architecture for a specific project or system, operating within the broader standards, patterns, and constraints established by enterprise architecture.

The case officer, who is in charge of the inquiry, is ultimately responsible for making sure that the law and these principles are followed.

Answer: ACPO Guidelines - Principle 4

ACPO Guidelines Principle 4 states that 'The person in charge of the investigation (the case officer) has overall responsibility for ensuring that the law and these principles are adhered to.' This principle assigns ultimate accountability to the case officer for the proper conduct of a digital forensics investigation, ensuring compliance with legal requirements and forensic best practices.

What does the acronym GWS typically refer to in the context of web servers?

Answer: Google Web Server

GWS stands for Google Web Server, which is proprietary web server software developed by Google. It is used to host Google's own websites and services. While not publicly available for general use, GWS is a significant player in the web server landscape, handling a vast amount of internet traffic for Google's ecosystem.