SAC Assessment & Evaluation Methods 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which of the following is an example of a quantitative assessment metric in system administration?
- User satisfaction with help desk support
- Number of failed login attempts per hour (Correct answer)
- Quality of documentation
- Staff morale after an outage
Correct answer: Number of failed login attempts per hour
Quantitative metrics are numerically measurable; failed login attempts per hour provides a concrete, countable data point.
Question 2: What does RTO stand for in the context of disaster recovery evaluation?
- Recovery Time Objective (Correct answer)
- Redundant Transfer Operation
- Real-Time Observation
- Remote Terminal Output
Correct answer: Recovery Time Objective
Recovery Time Objective (RTO) is the maximum acceptable time to restore a system or service after a disruption.
Question 3: A system administrator is asked to evaluate change management adherence. Which artifact provides the most direct evidence?
- Network topology diagram
- Change request tickets and approval records (Correct answer)
- Employee timesheets
- Firewall rule export
Correct answer: Change request tickets and approval records
Change request tickets and approval records directly evidence whether changes followed the documented change management process.
Question 4: Which assessment technique involves sending simulated phishing emails to staff to measure click rates?
- Penetration testing
- Red team exercise
- Security awareness phishing simulation (Correct answer)
- Social engineering audit
Correct answer: Security awareness phishing simulation
Security awareness phishing simulations test and measure employee susceptibility to phishing attacks without actual malicious intent.
Question 5: When evaluating disk I/O performance, which metric indicates a storage bottleneck most directly?
- Disk capacity usage percentage
- I/O wait time (iowait) (Correct answer)
- Number of disk partitions
- RAID level configured
Correct answer: I/O wait time (iowait)
High iowait percentage indicates CPUs are frequently idle waiting for disk operations, pointing directly to a storage bottleneck.
Question 6: Which evaluation framework is commonly used to assess IT service management processes?
- NIST SP 800-53
- ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) (Correct answer)
- PCI DSS
- SOC 2 Type II
Correct answer: ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library)
ITIL provides a framework of best practices specifically for IT service management process evaluation and improvement.
Question 7: A sysadmin notices memory utilization averages 95% over a 2-week period. What is the most appropriate next step?
- Reboot all servers immediately
- Document the finding and plan a capacity upgrade (Correct answer)
- Disable non-critical services without authorization
- Ignore it since the systems are still running
Correct answer: Document the finding and plan a capacity upgrade
Sustained high memory utilization indicates a capacity issue that should be documented and addressed through proper planning and change management.
SAC Assessment & Evaluation Methods 3
Which of the following is an example of a quantitative assessment metric in system administration?