Unit 1 - 5

Question 1

What is a system software?

Answer 1

A software that governs the computer system, controlling hardware, peripherals, applications, provides an interface

Question 2

What are the two types of system software?

Answer 2

Operating system (OS), Utilities

Question 3

Define an operating system?

Answer 3

A collection of programs that manages and controls the computer

Question 4

What are the functions of an operating system?

Answer 4

Controlling hardware components, proving user interface, managing files, multitasking facilities, managing computer’s memory

Question 5

Give 3 examples of operating systems?

Answer 5

Microsoft Windows, IOS, Android

Question 6

What is a user interface?

Answer 6

A program or suite (group) of programs that allows a user to interact with the computer

Question 7

What are the 3 types of user interface?

Answer 7

GUI (Graphical user interface) - Mobile UI (Mobile user interface) - CLI (Command line interface)

Question 8

What is GUI?

Answer 8

Graphical user interface - Require a large amount of processing power, they feature a desktop that displays everything such as applications that the user is able to interact with

Question 9

What is Mobile UI?

Answer 9

Very similar to GUI, HOWEVER respond to touch, fingers can be used to interact with the device often found in smartphones and tablets

Question 10

What is multi-tasking?

Answer 10

Being able to run more than one application or program on a computer, older computers could not do this because they ran off only CLI

Question 11

What 2 things are needed for multi-tasking to be successful?

Answer 11

Operating system needs to support multi-tasking
Device needs enough memory to hold more than one program in the RAM

Question 12

Why does a computer need to manage its memory?

Answer 12

More than one program can run at same time
More than one document can run at same time

Question 13

What is a method of memory management?

Answer 13

Paging - Where memory is broken up into fixed blocks

Question 14

What do you need to operate a peripheral?

Answer 14

A device driver

Question 15

What is a device driver?

Answer 15

Contains instructions on how to control a device

Question 16

What are 2 advantages of using a device driver?

Answer 16

Any device can be used if it has a driver
They can be updated to give a better performance and remove bugs

Question 17

What is file handling?

Answer 17

Allows users to create, modify, and delete files and folders

Question 18

What is user management?

Answer 18

Allow access levels to be given to user such as administrator rights or or standard user

Question 19

Define utility software?

Answer 19

Utility software helps maintain the system, it includes encryption, defragmentation, data compression and backup software

Question 20

What is encryption software?

Answer 20

Disguises the contents of the files so they can only be understood by authorised users, it uses a complex algorithm to do this

Question 21

What is defragmentation?

Answer 21

When a file is stored on a hard disk it is actually not stored as a whole file but as a series of segments, these segments are split up known as fragmentation and defragmentation organises these files to speed up computer performance

Question 22

What is data compression?

Answer 22

A compression software that reduces the file size of a file stored on secondary storage

Question 23

What is backup software?

Answer 23

A copy of data is known as backup, contain copy of all files on a computer or just ones specified by the user