MS Master of Computer Science 3

Question 1

Which machine learning technique uses labeled training data to learn a mapping from inputs to outputs?

Accepted Answer

Supervised learning

Answer

Supervised learning trains a model on input-output pairs so it can predict outputs for new, unseen inputs.

Question 2

What is the role of a compiler's semantic analysis phase?

Accepted Answer

Checking type correctness and scope rules

Answer

Semantic analysis verifies that a syntactically correct program is also meaningful, checking types, scopes, and declarations.

Question 3

In operating systems, what is thrashing?

Accepted Answer

Excessive paging where the system spends more time swapping than executing

Answer

Thrashing occurs when a system has insufficient physical memory, causing constant page faults and near-zero useful CPU utilization.

Question 4

Which cryptographic primitive provides both data integrity and authentication using a shared secret key?

Accepted Answer

HMAC

Answer

HMAC (Hash-based Message Authentication Code) combines a cryptographic hash with a shared secret to provide integrity and authentication.

Question 5

What does Big-O notation describe about an algorithm?

Accepted Answer

Asymptotic upper bound on growth rate of resource usage

Answer

Big-O describes the upper bound on how an algorithm's time or space requirements grow relative to input size as n approaches infinity.

MS - Master of Science Practice Test