MS Master of Computer Science 4

Question 1

Which network protocol resolves IP addresses to MAC addresses on a local area network?

Accepted Answer

ARP

Answer

ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) broadcasts a request on the local network to discover which MAC address corresponds to a given IP address.

Question 2

What is a race condition in concurrent programming?

Accepted Answer

A bug where program outcome depends on unpredictable timing of thread execution

Answer

A race condition occurs when two or more threads access shared data concurrently and the result depends on which thread executes first.

Question 3

In relational databases, what is the purpose of an index?

Accepted Answer

To speed up data retrieval at the cost of additional storage and write overhead

Answer

A database index is a data structure (often a B-tree) that allows the engine to find rows matching a condition without a full table scan.

Question 4

Which sorting algorithm achieves O(n log n) time in all cases and uses O(1) extra space?

Accepted Answer

Heap sort

Answer

Heap sort guarantees O(n log n) worst-case time by building a max-heap and repeatedly extracting the maximum, using only constant extra space.

Question 5

What is the primary purpose of Docker containers in software development?

Accepted Answer

Packaging an application with its dependencies into a portable, reproducible unit

Answer

Docker containers bundle application code and all dependencies so the software runs consistently across development, testing, and production environments.

MS - Master of Science Practice Test

MS - Master of Science Practice Test

MS Master of Computer Science 4