freshers guide

2007-08-24T23:02:00.000-07:00

O operating Systems

Following are a few basic questions that cover the essentials of OS:

Explain the concept of Reentrancy.

It is a useful, memory-saving technique for multiprogrammed timesharing systems. A Reentrant Procedure is one in which multiple users can share a single copy of a program during the same period. Reentrancy has 2 key aspects: The program code cannot modify itself, and the local data for each user process must be stored separately. Thus, the permanent part is the code, and the temporary part is the pointer back to the calling program and local variables used by that program. Each execution instance is called activation. It executes the code in the permanent part, but has its own copy of local variables/parameters. The temporary part associated with each activation is the activation record. Generally, the activation record is kept on the stack.

Note: A reentrant procedure can be interrupted and called by an interrupting program, and still execute correctly on returning to the procedure.

Explain Belady's Anomaly.

Also called FIFO anomaly. Usually, on increasing the number of frames allocated to a process' virtual memory, the process execution is faster, because fewer page faults occur. Sometimes, the reverse happens, i.e., the execution time increases even when more frames are allocated to the process. This is Belady's Anomaly. This is true for certain page reference patterns.

What is a binary semaphore? What is its use?

A binary semaphore is one, which takes only 0 and 1 as values. They are used to implement mutual exclusion and synchronize concurrent processes.

What is thrashing?

It is a phenomenon in virtual memory schemes when the processor spends most of its time swapping pages, rather than executing instructions. This is due to an inordinate number of page faults.

List the Coffman's conditions that lead to a deadlock.

Mutual Exclusion: Only one process may use a critical resource at a time.
Hold & Wait: A process may be allocated some resources while waiting for others.

No Pre-emption: No resource can be forcible removed from a process holding it.
Circular Wait: A closed chain of processes exist such that each process holds at least one resource needed by another process in the chain.

What are short-, long- and medium-term scheduling?

Long term scheduler determines which programs are admitted to the system for processing. It controls the degree of multiprogramming. Once admitted, a job becomes a process.

Medium term scheduling is part of the swapping function. This relates to processes that are in a blocked or suspended state. They are swapped out of real-memory until they are ready to execute. The swapping-in decision is based on memory-management criteria.

Short term scheduler, also know as a dispatcher executes most frequently, and makes the finest-grained decision of which process should execute next. This scheduler is invoked whenever an event occurs. It may lead to interruption of one process by preemption.

What are turnaround time and response time?

Turnaround time is the interval between the submission of a job and its completion. Response time is the interval between submission of a request, and the first response to that request.

What are the typical elements of a process image?

User data: Modifiable part of user space. May include program data, user stack area, and programs that may be modified.

User program: The instructions to be executed.
System Stack: Each process has one or more LIFO stacks associated with it. Used to store parameters and calling addresses for procedure and system calls.

Process control Block (PCB): Info needed by the OS to control processes.

What is the Translation Lookaside Buffer (TLB)?

In a cached system, the base addresses of the last few referenced pages is maintained in registers called the TLB that aids in faster lookup. TLB contains those page-table entries that have been most recently used. Normally, each virtual memory reference causes 2 physical memory accesses-- one to fetch appropriate page-table entry, and one to fetch the desired data. Using TLB in-between, this is reduced to just one physical memory access in cases of TLB-hit.

What is the resident set and working set of a process?

Resident set is that portion of the process image that is actually in real-memory at a particular instant. Working set is that subset of resident set that is actually needed for execution. (Relate this to the variable-window size method for swapping techniques.)

When is a system in safe state?

The set of dispatchable processes is in a safe state if there exists at least one temporal order in which all processes can be run to completion without resulting in a deadlock.

What is cycle stealing?

We encounter cycle stealing in the context of Direct Memory Access (DMA). Either the DMA controller can use the data bus when the CPU does not need it, or it may force the CPU to temporarily suspend operation. The latter technique is called cycle stealing. Note that cycle stealing can be done only at specific break points in an instruction cycle.

What is meant by arm-stickiness?

If one or a few processes have a high access rate to data on one track of a storage disk, then they may monopolize the device by repeated requests to that track. This generally happens with most common device scheduling algorithms (LIFO, SSTF, C-SCAN, etc). High-density multisurface disks are more likely to be affected by this than low density ones.

What are the stipulations of C2 level security?

C2 level security provides for:

Discretionary Access Control
Identification and Authentication
Auditing
Resource reuse

What is busy waiting?

The repeated execution of a loop of code while waiting for an event to occur is called busy-waiting. The CPU is not engaged in any real productive activity during this period, and the process does not progress toward completion.

Explain the popular multiprocessor thread-scheduling strategies.

Load Sharing: Processes are not assigned to a particular processor. A global queue of threads is maintained. Each processor, when idle, selects a thread from this queue. Note that load balancing refers to a scheme where work is allocated to processors on a more permanent basis.

Gang Scheduling: A set of related threads is scheduled to run on a set of processors at the same time, on a 1-to-1 basis. Closely related threads / processes may be scheduled this way to reduce synchronization blocking, and minimize process switching. Group scheduling predated this strategy.

Dedicated processor assignment: Provides implicit scheduling defined by assignment of threads to processors. For the duration of program execution, each program is allocated a set of processors equal in number to the number of threads in the program. Processors are chosen from the available pool.

Dynamic scheduling: The number of thread in a program can be altered during the course of execution.

When does the condition 'rendezvous' arise?

In message passing, it is the condition in which, both, the sender and receiver are blocked until the message is delivered.

What is a trap and trapdoor?

Trapdoor is a secret undocumented entry point into a program used to grant access without normal methods of access authentication. A trap is a software interrupt, usually the result of an error condition.

What are local and global page replacements?

Local replacement means that an incoming page is brought in only to the relevant process' address space. Global replacement policy allows any page frame from any process to be replaced. The latter is applicable to variable partitions model only.

Define latency, transfer and seek time with respect to disk I/O.

Seek time is the time required to move the disk arm to the required track. Rotational delay or latency is the time it takes for the beginning of the required sector to reach the head. Sum of seek time (if any) and latency is the access time. Time taken to actually transfer a span of data is transfer time.

Describe the Buddy system of memory allocation.

Free memory is maintained in linked lists, each of equal sized blocks. Any such block is of size 2^k. When some memory is required by a process, the block size of next higher order is chosen, and broken into two. Note that the two such pieces differ in address only in their kth bit. Such pieces are called buddies. When any used block is freed, the OS checks to see if its buddy is also free. If so, it is rejoined, and put into the original free-block linked-list.

What is time-stamping?

It is a technique proposed by Lamport, used to order events in a distributed system without the use of clocks. This scheme is intended to order events consisting of the transmission of messages. Each system 'i' in the network maintains a counter Ci. Every time a system transmits a message, it increments its counter by 1 and attaches the time-stamp Ti to the message. When a message is received, the receiving system 'j' sets its counter Cj to 1 more than the maximum of its current value and the incoming time-stamp Ti. At each site, the ordering of messages is determined by the following rules: For messages x from site i and y from site j, x precedes y if one of the following conditions holds....(a) if Ti<Tj or (b) if Ti=Tj and i<j.

How are the wait/signal operations for monitor different from those for semaphores?

If a process in a monitor signal and no task is waiting on the condition variable, the signal is lost. So this allows easier program design. Whereas in semaphores, every operation affects the value of the semaphore, so the wait and signal operations should be perfectly balanced in the program.

In the context of memory management, what are placement and replacement algorithms?

Placement algorithms determine where in available real-memory to load a program. Common methods are first-fit, next-fit, best-fit. Replacement algorithms are used when memory is full, and one process (or part of a process) needs to be swapped out to accommodate a new program. The replacement algorithm determines which are the partitions to be swapped out.

In loading programs into memory, what is the difference between load-time dynamic linking and run-time dynamic linking?

For load-time dynamic linking: Load module to be loaded is read into memory. Any reference to a target external module causes that module to be loaded and the references are updated to a relative address from the start base address of the application module.

With run-time dynamic loading: Some of the linking is postponed until actual reference during execution. Then the correct module is loaded and linked.

What are demand- and pre-paging?

With demand paging, a page is brought into memory only when a location on that page is actually referenced during execution. With pre-paging, pages other than the one demanded by a page fault are brought in. The selection of such pages is done based on common access patterns, especially for secondary memory devices.

Paging a memory management function, while multiprogramming a processor management function, are the two interdependent?

Yes.

What is page cannibalizing?

Page swapping or page replacements are called page cannibalizing.

What has triggered the need for multitasking in PCs?

Increased speed and memory capacity of microprocessors together with the support fir virtual memory and
Growth of client server computing

What are the four layers that Windows NT have in order to achieve independence?

Hardware abstraction layer
Kernel
Subsystems
System Services.

What is SMP?

To achieve maximum efficiency and reliability a mode of operation known as symmetric multiprocessing is used. In essence, with SMP any process or threads can be assigned to any processor.

What are the key object oriented concepts used by Windows NT?

Encapsulation
Object class and instance

Is Windows NT a full blown object oriented operating system? Give reasons.

No Windows NT is not so, because its not implemented in object oriented language and the data structures reside within one executive component and are not represented as objects and it does not support object oriented capabilities .

What is a drawback of MVT?

It does not have the features like

ability to support multiple processors
virtual storage
source level debugging

What is process spawning?

When the OS at the explicit request of another process creates a process, this action is called process spawning.

How many jobs can be run concurrently on MVT?

15 jobs

List out some reasons for process termination.

Normal completion
Time limit exceeded
Memory unavailable
Bounds violation
Protection error
Arithmetic error
Time overrun
I/O failure
Invalid instruction
Privileged instruction
Data misuse
Operator or OS intervention
Parent termination.

What are the reasons for process suspension?

swapping
interactive user request
timing
parent process request

What is process migration?

It is the transfer of sufficient amount of the state of process from one machine to the target machine

What is mutant?

In Windows NT a mutant provides kernel mode or user mode mutual exclusion with the notion of ownership.

What is an idle thread?

The special thread a dispatcher will execute when no ready thread is found.

What is FtDisk?

It is a fault tolerance disk driver for Windows NT.

What are the possible threads a thread can have?

Ready
Standby
Running
Waiting
Transition
Terminated.

What are rings in Windows NT?

Windows NT uses protection mechanism called rings provides by the process to implement separation between the user mode and kernel mode.

What is Executive in Windows NT?

In Windows NT, executive refers to the operating system code that runs in kernel mode.

What are the sub-components of I/O manager in Windows NT?

Network redirector/ Server
Cache manager.
File systems
Network driver
Device driver

What are DDks? Name an operating system that includes this feature.

DDks are device driver kits, which are equivalent to SDKs for writing device drivers. Windows NT includes DDks.

What level of security does Windows NT meets?

C2 level security.

2007-08-24T22:56:00.000-07:00

Verbal

1. Depreciation: deflation, depression, devaluation, fall, slump

2. Deprecate : feel and express disapproval,

3. Incentive : thing one encourages one to do (stimulus)

4. Echelon : level of authority or responsibility

5. Innovation : make changes or introduce new things

6. Intermittent : externally stopping and then starting

7. Detrimental: harmful

8. Conciliation : make less angry or more friendly

9. Orthodox: conventional or traditional, superstitious

10. Fallible : liable to error

11. Volatile : ever changing

12. Manifest: clear and obvious

13. Connotation : suggest or implied meaning of expression

14. Reciprocal: reverse or opposite

15. Agrarian : related to agriculture

16. Vacillate : undecided or dilemma

17. Expedient : fitting proper, desirable

18. Simulate : produce artificially resembling an existing one.

19. Access : to approach

20. Compensation: salary

21. Truncate : shorten by cutting

22. Adherence : stick

23. Heterogeneous: non similar things

24. Surplus : excessive

25. Assess : determine the amount or value

26. Cognizance : knowledge

27. Retrospective : review

28. Naive : innocent, rustic

29. Equivocate : tallying on both sides, lie, mislead

30. Postulate : frame a theory

31. Latent : dormant, secret

32. Fluctuation : wavering,

33. Eliminate : to reduce

34. Affinity : strong liking

35. Expedite : hasten

36. Console : to show sympathy

37. Adversary : opposition

38. Affable : lovable or approachable

39. Decomposition : rotten

40. Agregious : apart from the crowd, especially bad

41. Conglomeration: group, collection

42. Aberration: deviation

43. Augury : prediction

44. Creditability : ability to common belief, quality of being credible

45. Coincident: incidentally

46. Constituent : accompanying

47. Differential : having or showing or making use of

48. Litigation : engaging in a law suit

49. Moratorium: legally or officially determined period of delay before
fulfillment of the agreement of paying of debts.

50. Negotiate : discuss or bargain

51. Preparation : act of preparing

52. Preponderant : superiority of power or quality

53. Relevance : quality of being relevant

54. Apparatus : appliances

55. Ignorance : blindness, in experience

56. Obsession: complex enthusiasm

57. precipitate : speed, active

58. corroborative: refutable

59. obnoxious : harmless

60. sanction: hinder

61. empirical: experimental

62. aborigine: emigrant

63. corpulent : emaciated

64. officious: pragmate

65. Agitator : Firebrand :: Renegade : Turncoat

66. Burst : Sound :: Tinder : Fire

67. Star : cluster :: Tree : clump

68. Piston : Cylinder :: elevator : shaft

69. Mitigate : punishment :: commute : sentence

70. Erudite : scholar :: illiterate : ignorant

71. Fire : Ashes :: explosion : debris

72. mason : wall :: Author : Book

73. Fire : Ashes :: Event : memories

74. (a) cheerleaders : pompoms
(b) audience:seats
(c) team:goalposts
(d) conductor:podium
(e) referee:decision

Ans. (a)

75. archipelago:islands::

(a) arbor:bower
(b) garden:flower
(c) mountain:valley
(d) sand:dune
(e) constellation:star

Ans. (a)

76. crow:boastful ::

(a) smirk:witty
(b) conceal:s;y
(c) pout:sulky
(d) blush:coarse
(e) bluster:unhappy

Ans. (a)

77. bracket:shelf ::

(a) hammer:anvil
(b) girder:rivet
(c) strut:rafter
(d) valve:pipe
(e) bucket:well

Ans. (a)

78. taxonomy:classification ::

(a) etymology:derivation
(b) autonomy:authorization
(c) economy:rationalization
(d) tautology:justification
(e) ecology:urbanisation

Ans. (a)

79. moderator:debate ::

(a) legislator:election
(b) chef:banquet
(c) auditor:lecture
(d) conspirator:plot
(e) umpire:game

Ans. (a)

80. glossary:words ::

(a) catalogue:dates
(b) atlas:maps
(c) almanac:synonyms
(d) thesaurus:rhymes
(e) lexicon:numbers

Ans. (a)

81. lumber: bear ::

(a) roost:hen
(b) bray:donkey
(c) waddle:goose
(d) swoop:hawk
(e) chirp:sparrow

Ans. (a)

82. celerity:snail ::

(a) indolence:sloth
(b) cunning:weasel
(c) curiosity:cat
(d) humility:peacock
(e) obstinacy:mule

Ans. (a)

83. wood:sand ::

(a) coal:burn
(b) brick:lay
(c) oil:polish
(d) metal:burnish
(e) stone:quarry

Ans. (a)

84. carpenter:saw ::

(a) stenographer:typist
(b) painter:brush
(c) lawyer:brief
(d) runner:sneakers
(e) seamstress:scissors

Ans. (a)

85. horns:bull ::

(a) mane:lion
(b) wattles:turkey
(c) antlers:stag
(d) hooves:horse
(e) wings:eagle

Ans. (a)

86. gullible:duped ::

(a) credible:cheated
(b) careful:cautioned
(c) malleable:moulded
(d) myopic:mislead
(e) articulate:silenced

Ans. (a)

87. marathon:stamina ::

(a) relay:independence
(b) hurdle:perseverance
(c) sprint:celerity
(d) job:weariness
(e) ramble:directness

Ans. (a)

88. Skin:man ::

(a) hide:animal
(b) jump:start
(c) peel:potato
(d) eat:food
(e) wool:cloth

Ans. (a)

89. Bamboo:Shoot ::

(a) Bean:Sprout
(b) Peas:Pod
(c) Potato:Eye
(d) Carrot:Root
(e) Leaf:Stem

Ans. (a)

90. Deflect:Missile ::

(a) Siege:Castle
(b) Distract:Attraction
(c) Protect:Honour
(d) Drop:Catch
(e) Score:Goal

Ans. (a)

91. Editor:magazine ::

(a) captain:ship
(b) actor:movie
(c) director:film
(d) player:team
(e) jockey:horse

Ans. (a)

92. Volcano : Lava ::

(a) Fault:earthquate
(b) crack:wall
(c) tunnel:dig
(d) water:swim
(e) floor:polish

Ans. (a)

93. Disregarded
(a) heed
(b) hopeful
(c) evade
(d) dense

Ans. (a)

94. Obviate
(a) becloud
(b) necessitate
(c) rationalize
(d) execute

Ans. (b)

95. Superficial
(a) profound
(b) exaggerated
(c) subjective
(d) spirited

Ans. (a)

96. chief : tribe :: governer : state

97. epaulette : shoulder :: tiara : head

98. guttural : throat :: gastric : stomach

99. inept : clever :: languid : active

100. Erudite : scholar :: illiterate : ignorant

2007-08-24T22:48:00.000-07:00

Technical Questions

1. A 2MB PCM(pulse code modulation) has

a) 32 channels
b) 30 voice channels & 1 signalling channel.
c) 31 voice channels & 1 signalling channel.
d) 32 channels out of which 30 voice channels, 1 signalling channel, & 1 Synchronizatio channel.

Ans: (c)

2. Time taken for 1 satellite hop in voice communication is

a) 1/2 second
b) 1 seconds
c) 4 seconds
d) 2 seconds

Ans: (a)

3. Max number of satellite hops allowed in voice communication is :

a) only one
b) more han one
c) two hops
d) four hops

Ans: (c)

4. What is the max. decimal number that can be accomodated in a byte.

a) 128
b) 256
c) 255
d) 512

Ans: (c)

5. Conditional results after execution of an instruction in a micro processor is stored in

a) register
b) accumulator
c) flag register
d) flag register part of PSW(Program Status Word)

Ans: (d)

6. Frequency at which VOICE is sampled is

a) 4 Khz
b) 8 Khz
c) 16 Khz
d) 64 Khz

Ans: (a)

7. Line of Sight is

a) Straight Line
b) Parabolic
c) Tx & Rx should be visible to each other
d) none

Ans: (c)

8. Purpose of PC(Program Counter) in a MicroProcessor is

a) To store address of TOS(Top Of Stack)
b) To store address of next instruction to be executed.
c) count the number of instructions.
d) to store base address of the stack.

Ans: (b)

9. What action is taken when the processor under execution is interrupted by a non-maskable interrupt?

a) Processor serves the interrupt request after completing the execution of the current instruction.
b) Processor serves the interupt request after completing the current task.
c) Processor serves the interupt request immediately.
d) Processor serving the interrupt request depends upon the priority of the current task under execution.

Ans: (a)

10. The status of the Kernel is

a) task
b) process
c) not defined.
d) none of the above.

Ans: (b)

11. To send a data packet using datagram , connection will be established

a) before data transmission.
b) connection is not established before data transmission.
c) no connection is required.
d) none of the above.

Ans: (c)

12. Word allignment is

a) alligning the address to the next word boundary of the machine.
b) alligning to even boundary.
c) alligning to word boundary.
d) none of the above.

Ans: (a)

13 When a 'C' function call is made, the order in which parameters passed to the function are pushed into the stack is

a) left to right
b) right to left
c) bigger variables are moved first than the smaller variales.
d) smaller variables are moved first than the bigger ones.
e) none of the above.

Ans: (b)

14 What is the type of signalling used between two exchanges?

a) inband
b) common channel signalling
c) any of the above
d) none of the above.

Ans: (a)

15 Buffering is

a) the process of temporarily storing the data to allow for small variation in device speeds
b) a method to reduce cross talks
c) storage of data within transmitting medium until the receiver is ready to receive.
d) a method to reduce routing overhead.

Ans: (a)

16. Memory allocation of variables declared in a program is

a) allocated in RAM.
b) allocated in ROM.
c) allocated on stack.
d) assigned to registers.

Ans: (c)

17. A software that allows a personal computer to pretend as a computer terminal is

a) terminal adapter
b) bulletin board
c) modem
d) terminal emulation

Ans: (d)

18. Find the output of the following program

int *p,*q;
p=(int *)1000;
q=(int *)2000;
printf("%d",(q-p));

Ans: 500

19. Which addressing mode is used in the following statements:

(a) MVI B,55
(b) MOV B,A
(c) MOV M,A

Ans. (a) Immediate addressing mode.
(b) Register Addressing Mode
(c) Direct addressing mode

20. RS-232C standard is used in _____________.

Ans. Serial I/O

21. Memory. Management in Operating Systems is done by

a) Memory Management Unit
b) Memory management software of the Operating System
c) Kernel

Ans: (b)

22. What is done for a Push opertion?

Ans: SP is decremented and then the value is stored.

23. Binary equivalent of 52

Ans. 110100

24. Hexadecimal equivalent of 3452

Ans. 72A

25. Explain Just In Time Concept ?

Ans. Elimination of waste by purchasing manufacturing exactly when needed

26. A good way of unit testing s/w program is

Ans. User test

27. OOT uses

Ans. Encapsulated of detect methods

28.EDI useful in

Ans. Electronic Transmission

29. MRPII different from MRP

Ans. Modular version of man redundant initials

30. Hard disk time for R/W head to move to correct sector

Ans. Latency Time

31. The percentage of times a page number bound in associate register is called

Ans. Bit ratio

32. Expand MODEM

Ans. Modulator and Demodulator

33. RDBMS file system can be defined as

Ans. Interrelated

34. Super Key is

Ans. Primary key and Attribute

35. Windows 95 supports

(a) Multiuser
(b) n tasks
(c) Both
(d) None

Ans. (a)

36.In the command scanf, h is used for

Ans. Short int

37.A process is defined as

Ans. Program in execution

38.A thread is

Ans. Detachable unit of executable code)

39.What is the advantage of Win NT over Win 95

Ans. Robust and secure

40.How is memory management done in Win95

Ans. Through paging and segmentation

41.What is meant by polymorphism

Ans. Redfinition of a base class method in a derived class

42.What is the essential feature of inheritance

Ans. All properties of existing class are derived

43.What does the protocol FTP do

Ans. Transfer a file b/w stations with user authentification

44.In the transport layer ,TCP is what type of protocol

Ans. Connection oriented

45.Why is a gateway used

Ans. To connect incompatible networks

46.How is linked list implemented

Ans. By referential structures

47.What method is used in Win95 in multitasking

Ans. Non preemptive check

48.What is a semaphore

Ans. A method synchronization of multiple processes

49.What is the precedence order from high to low ,of the symbols ( ) ++ /

Ans.( ) , ++, /

50.Preorder of A*(B+C)/D-G

Ans.*+ABC/-DG

51.What is the efficiency of merge sort

Ans. O(n log n)

52.In which layer are routers used

Ans.In network layer

53.Which of the following sorting algorithem has average sorting behavior --
Bubble sort,merge sort,heap sort,exchange sort

Ans. Heap sort

54.In binary search tree which traversal is used for getting ascending order values--Inorder ,post order,preorder

Ans.Inorder

55.What are device drivers used for

Ans.To provide software for enabling the hardware

56.What is fork command in unix

Ans. System call used to create process

57.What is make command in unix

Ans. Used forcreation of more than one file

58.In unix .profile contains

Ans. Start up program

59.In unix 'ls 'stores contents in

Ans.inode block

60. Which of the following involves context switch,

(a) system call
(b) priviliged instruction
(c) floating poitnt exception
(d) all the above
(e) none of the above

Ans: (a)

61. In OST, terminal emulation is done in

(a) sessions layer
(b) application layer
(c) presentation layer
(d) transport layer

Ans: (b)

62. For 1 MB memory, the number of address lines required,

(a)11
(b)16
(c)22
(d) 24

Ans. (b)

63. Semaphore is used for

(a) synchronization
(b) dead-lock avoidence
(c) box
(d) none

Ans. (a)

64. Which holds true for the following statement

class c: public A, public B

a) 2 member in class A, B should not have same name
b) 2 member in class A, C should not have same name
c) both
d) none

Ans. (a)

65.Preproconia.. does not do which one of the following

(a) macro
(b) conditional compliclation
(c) in type checking
(d) including load file

Ans. (c)

66. Piggy backing is a technique for

a) Flow control
b) Sequence
c) Acknowledgement
d) retransmition

Ans. (c)

67. Which is not a memory management scheme?

a) buddy system
b) swapping
c) monitors
d) paging

Ans : c

68. There was a circuit given using three nand gates with two inputs and one output.
Find the output.

a) OR
b) AND
c) XOR
d) NOT

Ans. (a)

69.Iintegrated check value(ICV) are used as:

Ans. The client computes the ICV and then compares it with the senders value.

70. When applets are downloaded from web sites , a byte verifier performs _________?

Ans. Status check.

71. An IP/IPX packet received by a computer using... having IP/IPX both how the packet is handled.

Ans. Read the, field in the packet header with to send IP or IPX protocol.

72. The UNIX shell ....

a) does not come with the rest of the system
b) forms the interface between the user and the kernal
c) does not give any scope for programming
d) deos not allow calling one program from with in another
e) all of the above

Ans. (b)

73. In UNIX a files i-node ......?

Ans. Is a data structure that defines all specifications of a file like the file size,
number of lines to a file, permissions etc.

74. The very first process created by the kernal that runs till the kernal process is halts is

a) init
b) getty
c) both (a) and (b)
d) none of these

Ans. (a)

75. In the process table entry for the kernel process, the process id value is

(a) 0
(b) 1
(c) 2
(d) 255
(e) it does not have a process table entry

Ans. (a)

76. Which of the following API is used to hide a window

a) ShowWindow
b) EnableWindow
c) MoveWindow
d) SetWindowPlacement
e) None of the above

Ans. (a)

77. Which function is the entry point for a DLL in MS Windows 3.1

a) Main
b) Winmain
c) Dllmain
d) Libmain
e) None

Ans. (b)

78. The standard source for standard input, standard output and standard error is

a) the terminal
b) /dev/null
c) /usr/you/input, /usr/you/output/, /usr/you/error respectively
d) None

Ans. (a)

79. The redirection operators > and >>

a) do the same function
b) differ : > overwrites, while >> appends
c) differ : > is used for input while >> is used for output
d) differ : > write to any file while >> write only to standard output
e) None of these

Ans. (b)

80. The command grep first second third /usr/you/myfile

a) prints lines containing the words first, second or third from the file /usr/you/myfile
b) searches for lines containing the pattern first in the files
second, third, and /usr/you/myfile and prints them
c) searches the files /usr/you/myfiel and third for lines containing the words first or second and prints them
d) replaces the word first with the word second in the files third and /usr/you/myfile
e) None of the above

Ans. (b)

81. You are creating a Index on EMPNO column in the EMPLOYEE table. Which statement will you use?
a) CREATE INdEX emp_empno_idx ON employee, empno;
b) CREATE INdEX emp_empno_idx FOR employee, empno;
c) CREATE INdEX emp_empno_idx ON employee(empno);
d) CREATE emp_empno_idx INdEX ON employee(empno);

Ans. c

82. Which program construct must return a value?
a) Package
b) Function
c) Anonymous block
d) Stored Procedure
e) Application Procedure

Ans. b

83. Which Statement would you use to remove the EMPLOYEE_Id_PK PRIMARY KEY constraint and all depending constraints fromthe EMPLOYEE table?
a) ALTER TABLE employee dROP PRIMARY KEY CASCAdE;
b) ALTER TABLE employee dELETE PRIMARY KEY CASCAdE;
c) MOdIFY TABLE employee dROP CONSTRAINT employee_id_pk CASCAdE;
d) ALTER TABLE employee dROP PRIMARY KEY employee_id_pk CASCAdE;
e) MOdIFY TABLE employee dELETE PRIMARY KEY employee_id_pk CASCAdE;

Ans. a

84. Which three commands cause a transaction to end? (Chosse three)
a) ALTER
b) GRANT
c) DELETE
d) INSERT
e) UPdATE
f) ROLLBACK

Ans. a ,b ,f

85. Under which circumstance should you create an index on a table?
a) The table is small.
b) The table is updated frequently.
c) A columns values are static and contain a narrow range of values
d) Two columns are consistently used in the WHERE clause join condition of SELECT
statements.

Ans.d

86. What was the first name given to Java Programming Language.

a) Oak - Java
b) Small Talk
c) Oak
d) None

Ans.a

87.When a bicycle is in motion,the force of friction exerted by the ground on the two wheels is such that it acts

(a) In the backward direction on the front wheel and in the forward direction on the rear wheel.
(b) In the forward direction on the front wheel and in the backward direction on the rear wheel.
(c) In the backward direction on both the front and rear wheels.
(d) In the backward direction on both the front and rear wheels.

Ans. (d)

88. A certain radioactive element A, has a half life = t seconds.
In (t/2) seconds the fraction of the initial quantity of the element so far decayed is nearly

(a) 29%
(b) 15%
(c) 10%
(d) 45%

Ans. (a)

89. Which of the following plots would be a straight line ?

(a) Logarithm of decay rate against logarithm of time
(b) Logarithm of decay rate against logarithm of number of decaying nuclei
(c) Decay rate against time
(d) Number of decaying nuclei against time

Ans. (b)

90. A radioactive element x has an atomic number of 100.
It decays directly into an element y which decays directly into element z.
In both processes a charged particle is emitted.
Which of the following statements would be true?

(a) y has an atomic number of 102
(b) y has an atomic number of 101
(c) z has an atomic number of 100
(d) z has an atomic number of 101

Ans. (b)

91. If the sum of the roots of the equation ax² + bx + c=0 is equal to the sum of the squares of their reciprocals
then a/c, b/a, c/b are in

(a) AP
(b) GP
(c) HP
(d) None of these

Ans. (c)

92. A man speaks the truth 3 out of 4 times.
He throws a die and reports it to be a 6.
What is the probability of it being a 6?

(a) 3/8
(b) 5/8
(c) 3/4
(d) None of the above

Ans. (a)

93. If cos²A + cos²B + cos²C = 1 then ABC is a

(a) Right angle triangle
(b) Equilateral triangle
(c) All the angles are acute
(d) None of these

Ans. (a)

94. Image of point (3,8) in the line x + 3y = 7 is

(a) (-1,-4)
(b) (-1,4)
(c) (2,-4)
(d) (-2,-4)

Ans. (a)

95. The mass number of a nucleus is

(a) Always less than its atomic number
(b) Always more than its atomic number
(c) Sometimes more than and sometimes equal to its atomic number
(d) None of the above

Ans. (c)

96. The maximum KE of the photoelectron emitted from a surface is dependent on

(a) The intensity of incident radiation
(b) The potential of the collector electrode
(c) The frequency of incident radiation
(d) The angle of incidence of radiation of the surface

Ans. (c)

97. Which of the following is not an essential condition for interference

(a) The two interfering waves must be propagated in almost the same direction or
the two interfering waves must intersect at a very small angle
(b) The waves must have the same time period and wavelength
(c) Amplitude of the two waves should be the same
(d) The interfering beams of light must originate from the same source

Ans. (c)

98. When X-Ray photons collide with electrons

(a) They slow down
(b) Their mass increases
(c) Their wave length increases
(d) Their energy decreases

Ans. (c)

99. An electron emits energy

(a) Because its in orbit
(b) When it jumps from one energy level to another
(c) Electrons are attracted towards the nucleus
(d) The electrostatic force is insufficient to hold the electrons in orbits

Ans. (b)

100. How many bonds are present in CO₂ molecule?

(a) 1
(b) 2
(c) 0
(d) 4

Ans. (d)

OPERATING SYSTEMS

2007-08-19T22:39:00.000-07:00

1. Explain the concept of Reentrancy.
It is a useful, memory-saving technique for multiprogrammed timesharing systems. A Reentrant Procedure is one in which multiple users can share a single copy of a program during the same period. Reentrancy has 2 key aspects:
i.) The program code cannot modify itself,
ii.) The local data for each user process must be stored separately.
Thus, the permanent part is the code, and the temporary part is the pointer back to the calling program and local variables used by that program. Each execution instance is called activation. It executes the code in the permanent part, but has its own copy of local variables/parameters. The temporary part associated with each activation is the activation record. Generally, the activation record is kept on the stack.
Note: A reentrant procedure can be interrupted and called by an interrupting program, and still execute correctly on returning to the procedure.

2. Explain Belady's Anomaly.
Also called FIFO anomaly. Usually, on increasing the number of frames allocated to a process' virtual memory, the process execution is faster, because fewer page faults occur. Sometimes, the reverse happens, i.e., the execution time increases even when more frames are allocated to the process. This is Belady's Anomaly. This is true for certain page reference patterns.

3. What is a binary semaphore? What is its use?
A binary semaphore is one, which takes only 0 and 1 as values. They are used to implement mutual exclusion and synchronize concurrent processes.

4. What is thrashing?
It is a phenomenon in virtual memory schemes, when the processor spends most of its time swapping pages, rather than executing instructions. This is due to an inordinate number of page faults.

5. List the Coffman's conditions that lead to a deadlock.
a) Mutual Exclusion: Only one process may use a critical resource at a time.
b) Hold & Wait: A process may be allocated some resources while waiting for others.
c) No Pre-emption: No resource can be forcible removed from a process holding it.
d) Circular Wait: A closed chain of processes exist such that each process holds at least one resource needed by another process in the chain.

6. What are short-, long- and medium-term scheduling?
Long term scheduler determines which programs are admitted to the system for processing. It controls the degree of multiprogramming. Once admitted, a job becomes a process.
Medium term scheduling is part of the swapping function. This relates to processes that are in a blocked or suspended state. They are swapped out of main-memory until they are ready to execute. The swapping-in decision is based on memory-management criteria.
Short term scheduler, also know as a dispatcher executes most frequently, and makes the finest-grained decision of which process should execute next. This scheduler is invoked whenever an event occurs. It may lead to interruption of one process by preemption.

7. What are turnaround time and response time?
Turnaround time is the interval between the submission of a job and its completion. Response time is the interval between submission of a request, and the first response to that request.

8. What are the typical elements of a process image?
a)User data: Modifiable part of user space. May include program data, user stack area, and programs that may be modified.
b) User program: The instructions to be executed.
c) System Stack: Each process has one or more LIFO stacks associated with it. Used to store parameters and calling addresses for procedure and system calls.
d) Process Control Block (PCB): Info needed by the OS to control processes.

9. What is the Translation Lookaside Buffer (TLB)?
In a cached system, the base addresses of the last few referenced pages is maintained in registers called the TLB that aids in faster lookup. TLB contains those page-table entries that have been most recently used. Normally, each virtual memory reference causes 2 physical memory accesses-- one to fetch appropriate page-table entry, and one to fetch the desired data. Using TLB in-between, this is reduced to just one physical memory access in cases of TLB-hit.

10. What is the resident set and working set of a process?
Resident set is that portion of the process image that is actually in main-memory at a particular instant. Working set is that subset of resident set that is actually needed for execution. (Relate this to the variable-window size method for swapping techniques.)

11. When is a system in safe state?
The set of dispatchable processes is in a safe state if there exist at least one temporal order in which all processes can be run to completion without resulting in a deadlock.

12. What is cycle stealing?
We encounter cycle stealing in the context of Direct Memory Access (DMA). Either the DMA controller can use the data bus when the CPU does not need it, or it may force the CPU to temporarily suspend operation. The latter technique is called cycle stealing. Note that cycle stealing can be done only at specific break points in an instruction cycle.

13. What is meant by arm-stickiness?
If one or a few processes have a high access rate to data on one track of a storage disk, then they may monopolize the device by repeated requests to that track. This generally happens with most common device scheduling algorithms (LIFO, SSTF, C-SCAN, etc). High-density multi-surface disks are more likely to be affected by this, than the low density ones.

14. What are the stipulations of C2 level security?
C2 level security provides for:
1. Discretionary Access Control
2. Identification and Authentication
3. Auditing
4. Resource Reuse

15. What is busy waiting?
The repeated execution of a loop of code while waiting for an event to occur is called busy-waiting. The CPU is not engaged in any real productive activity during this period, and the process does not progress toward completion.

16. Explain the popular multiprocessor thread-scheduling strategies.
Load Sharing: Processes are not assigned to a particular processor. A global queue of threads is maintained. Each processor, when idle, selects a thread from this queue. Note that load balancing refers to a scheme where work is allocated to processors on a more permanent basis.
Gang Scheduling: A set of related threads is scheduled to run on a set of processors at the same time, on a 1-to-1 basis. Closely related threads / processes may be scheduled this way to reduce synchronization blocking, and minimize process switching. Group scheduling predated this strategy.
Dedicated processor assignment: Provides implicit scheduling defined by assignment of threads to processors. For the duration of program execution, each program is allocated a set of processors equal in number to the number of threads in the program. Processors are chosen from the available pool.
Dynamic scheduling: The number of thread in a program can be altered during the course of execution.

17. When does the condition 'rendezvous' arise?
In message passing, it is the condition in which, both, the sender and receiver are blocked until the message is delivered.

18. What is a trap and trapdoor?
Trapdoor is a secret undocumented entry point into a program, used to grant access without normal methods of access authentication. A trap is a software interrupt, usually the result of an error condition.

19. What are local and global page replacements?
Local replacement means that an incoming page is brought in only to the relevant process' address space. Global replacement policy allows any page frame from any process to be replaced. The latter is applicable to variable partitions model only.

20. Define latency, transfer and seek time with respect to disk I/O.
Seek time is the time required to move the disk arm to the required track. Rotational delay or latency is the time to move the required sector to the disk head. Sums of seek time (if any) and the latency is the access time, for accessing a particular track in a particular sector. Time taken to actually transfer a span of data is transfer time.

21. Describe the Buddy system of memory allocation.
Free memory is maintained in linked lists, each of equal sized blocks. Any such block is of size 2^k. When some memory is required by a process, the block size of next higher order is chosen, and broken into two. Note that the two such pieces differ in address only in their kth bit. Such pieces are called buddies. When any used block is freed, the OS checks to see if its buddy is also free. If so, it is rejoined, and put into the original free-block linked-list.

22. What is time stamping?
It is a technique proposed by Lamport, used to order events in a distributed system without the use of clocks. This scheme is intended to order events consisting of the transmission of messages. Each system 'i' in the network maintains a counter Ci. Every time a system transmits a message, it increments its counter by 1 and attaches the time-stamp Ti to the message. When a message is received, the receiving system 'j' sets its counter Cj to 1 more than the maximum of its current value and the incoming time-stamp Ti. At each site, the ordering of messages is determined by the following rules:
For messages x from site i and messages y from site j, x precedes y if one of the following conditions holds if Ti < Tj or if Ti = Tj and i < j.

23. How are the wait/signal operations for monitor different from those for semaphores?
If a process in the monitor signals and no task is waiting on the condition variable, the signal is lost. So this allows easier program design. Whereas in semaphores, every operation affects the value of the semaphore, so the wait and signal operations should be perfectly balanced in the program.

24. In the context of memory management, what are placement and replacement algorithms?
Placement algorithms determine where in the available main-memory to load the incoming process. Common methods are first-fit, next-fit, and best-fit. Replacement algorithms are used when memory is full, and one process (or part of a process) needs to be swapped out to accommodate the new incoming process. The replacement algorithm determines which are the partitions (memory portions occupied by the processes) to be swapped out.

25. In loading processes into memory, what is the difference between load-time dynamic linking and run-time dynamic linking?
For load-time dynamic linking: Load module to be loaded is read into memory. Any reference to a target external module causes that module to be loaded and the references are updated to a relative address from the start base address of the application module.
With run-time dynamic loading: Some of the linking is postponed until actual reference during execution. Then the correct module is loaded and linked.

26. What are demand- and pre-paging?
With demand paging, a page is brought into the main-memory only when a location on that page is actually referenced during execution. With prepaging, pages other than the one demanded by a page fault are brought in. The selection of such pages is done based on common access patterns, especially for secondary memory devices.

27. What is mounting?
Mounting is the mechanism by which two different file systems can be combined together. This is one of the services provided by the operating system, which allows the user to work with two different file systems, and some of the secondary devices.

28. What do you mean by dispatch latency?
The time taken by the dispatcher to stop one process and start running another process is known as the dispatch latency.

29. What is multi-processing?
The ability of an operating system to use more than one CPU in a single computer system. Symmetrical multiprocessing refers to the OS's ability to assign tasks dynamically to the next available processor, whereas asymmetrical multiprocessing requires that the original program designer choose the processor to use for a given task at the time of writing the program.

30. What is multitasking?
Multitasking is a logical extension of multi-programming. This refers to the simultaneous execution of more than one program, by switching between them, in a single computer system.

31. Define multithreading?
The concurrent processing of several tasks or threads inside the same program or process. Because several tasks can be processed parallely and no tasks have to wait for the another to finish its execution.

32. Define compaction.
Compaction refers to the mechanism of shuffling the memory portions such that all the free portions of the memory can be aligned (or merged) together in a single large block. OS to overcome the problem of fragmentation, either internal or external, performs this mechanism, frequently. Compaction is possible only if relocation is dynamic and done at run-time, and if relocation is static and done at assembly or load-time compaction is not possible.

33. What do you mean by FAT (File Allocation Table)?
A table that indicates the physical location on secondary storage of the space allocated to a file. FAT chains the clusters (group of sectors) to define the contents of the file. FAT allocates clusters to files.

34. What is a Kernel?
Kernel is the nucleus or core of the operating system. This represents small part of the code, which is thought to be the entire operating system, it is most intensively used. Generally, the kernel is maintained permanently in main memory, and other portions of the OS are moved to and from the secondary storage (mostly hard disk).

35. What is memory-mapped I/O?
Memory-mapped I/O, meaning that the communication between the I/O devices and the processor is done through physical memory locations in the address space. Each I/O device will occupy some locations in the I/O address space. I.e., it will respond when those addresses are placed on the bus. The processor can write those locations to send commands and information to the I/O device and read those locations to get information and status from the I/O device. Memory-mapped I/O makes it easy to write device drivers in a high-level language as long as the high-level language can load and store from arbitrary addresses.

36. What are the advantages of threads?
 Threads provide parallel processing like processes but they have one important advantage over process, they are much more efficient.
 Threads are cheaper to create and destroy because they do not require allocation and de-allocation of a new address space or other process resources.
 It is faster to switch between threads. It will be faster since the memory-mapping does not have to be setup and the memory and address translation caches do not have to be violated.
 Threads are efficient as they share memory. They do not have to use system calls (which are slower because of context switches) to communicate.

37. What are kernel threads?
The processes that execute in the Kernel-mode that processes are called kernel threads.

38. What are the necessary conditions for deadlock to exist?
 Process claims exclusive control for the Resources allocated to them. (Mutual exclusion condition).
 Resources cannot be de-allocated until the process completes they are used for its complete execution. (No preemption condition).
 A process can hold one resource and wait for other resources to be allocated. (Wait for condition)
 Circular wait condition.

39. What are the strategies for dealing with deadlock?
 Prevention- Place restrictions on resource requests so that deadlock cannot occur.
 Avoidance- Plan ahead so that you never get in to a situation where deadlock is inevitable.
 Recovery- when deadlock is identified in the system, it recovers from it by removing some of the causes of the deadlock.
 Detection – detecting whether the deadlock actually exists and identifies the processes and resources that are involved in the deadlock.

40. Paging a memory management function, while multiprogramming a processor management function, are the two interdependent?
Yes.

41. What is page cannibalizing?
Page swapping or page replacements are called page cannibalizing.

42. What has triggered the need for multitasking in PCs?
 Increased speed and memory capacity of microprocessors together with the support fir virtual memory and
 Growth of client server computing

43. What are the four layers that Windows NT have in order to achieve independence?
 Hardware abstraction layer
 Kernel
 Subsystems
 System Services.

44. What is SMP?
To achieve maximum efficiency and reliability a mode of operation known as symmetric multiprocessing is used. In essence, with SMP any process or threads can be assigned to any processor.

45. What are the key object oriented concepts used by Windows NT?
 Encapsulation
 Object class and instance

46. Is Windows NT a full blown object oriented operating system? Give reasons.
No Windows NT is not so, because its not implemented in object oriented language and the data structures reside within one executive component and are not represented as objects and it does not support object oriented capabilities .

47. What is a drawback of MVT?
It does not have the features like
 ability to support multiple processors
 virtual storage
 source level debugging

48. What is process spawning?
When the OS at the explicit request of another process creates a process, this action is called process spawning.

49. How many jobs can be run concurrently on MVT?
15 jobs

50. List out some reasons for process termination.
 Normal completion
 Time limit exceeded
 Memory unavailable
 Bounds violation
 Protection error
 Arithmetic error
 Time overrun
 I/O failure
 Invalid instruction
 Privileged instruction
 Data misuse
 Operator or OS intervention
 Parent termination.

51. What are the reasons for process suspension?
 swapping
 interactive user request
 timing
 parent process request

52. What is process migration?
It is the transfer of sufficient amount of the state of process from one machine to the target machine

53. What is mutant?
In Windows NT a mutant provides kernel mode or user mode mutual exclusion with the notion of ownership.

54. What is an idle thread?
The special thread a dispatcher will execute when no ready thread is found.

55. What is FtDisk?
It is a fault tolerance disk driver for Windows NT.

56. What are the possible threads a thread can have?
 Ready
 Standby
 Running
 Waiting
 Transition
 Terminated.

57. What are rings in Windows NT?
Windows NT uses protection mechanism called rings provides by the process to implement separation between the user mode and kernel mode.

58. What is Executive in Windows NT?
In Windows NT, executive refers to the operating system code that runs in kernel mode.

59. What are the sub-components of I/O manager in Windows NT?
 Network redirector/ Server
 Cache manager.
 File systems
 Network driver
 Device driver

60. What are DDks? Name an operating system that includes this feature.
DDks are device driver kits, which are equivalent to SDKs for writing device drivers. Windows NT includes DDks.

61. What level of security does Windows NT meets?
C2 level security

UNIX

2007-08-19T22:33:00.000-07:00

Section - I - File Management In Unix

1. What are the logical blocks of the UNIX file system?
 Boot block
 Super block
 Inode block
 Data block

2. What is an 'inode'?
All UNIX files have its description stored in a structure called 'inode'. The inode contains info about the file-size, its location, time of last access, time of last modification, permission and so on. Directories are also represented as files and have an associated inode. In addition to descriptions about the file, the inode contains pointers to the data blocks of the file. If the file is large, inode has indirect pointer to a block of pointers to additional data blocks (this further aggregates for larger files). A block is typically 8k.
Inode consists of the following fields:
 File owner identifier
 File type
 File access permissions
 File access times
 Number of links
 File size
 Location of the file data

3. How does the inode map to data block of a file?
Inode has 13 block addresses. The first 10 are direct block addresses and these addresses point to first 10 data blocks in the file.
The 11th address points to a one-level index block.
The 12th address points to a two-level (double in-direction) index block. The 13th address points to a three-level (triple in-direction) index block.
This mapping scheme provides a very large maximum file size with efficient access to large files, still small files are accessed directly in one disk read.

4. Brief about the directory representation in UNIX
A UNIX directory is a file containing a correspondence between filenames and inodes. A directory is a special file that the kernel maintains. Only kernel modifies directories, but processes can read directories. The contents of a directory are a list of filename and inode number pairs. When new directories are created, kernel makes two entries named '.' (refers to the directory itself) and '..' (refers to parent directory).
The system call for creating a new directory is mkdir (pathname, mode).

5. How are devices represented in UNIX?
All devices are represented by files that are called as special files. They are are located in ‘/dev’ directory. Thus, device files and other files are named and accessed in the same way.
There are two types of such special files: 'block special files' and 'character special files'. A 'block special file' represents a device with characteristics similar to a disk (data transfer in terms of blocks). A 'character special file' represents a device with characteristics similar to a keyboard (data transfer is by stream of bits in sequential order).

6. What are the Unix system calls for I/O?
 open(pathname,flag,mode) - open file
 creat(pathname,mode) - create file
 close(filedes) - close an open file
 read(filedes,buffer,bytes) - read data from an open file
 write(filedes,buffer,bytes) - write data to an open file
 lseek(filedes,offset,from) - position an open file
 dup(filedes) - duplicate an existing file descriptor
 dup2(oldfd,newfd) - duplicate to a desired file descriptor
 fcntl(filedes,cmd,arg) - change properties of an open file
 ioctl(filedes,request,arg) - change the behaviour of an open file
The difference between fcntl anf ioctl is that the former is intended for any open file, while the latter is for device-specific operations.

7. How do you change File Access Permissions?
Every file has following attributes:
 owner's user ID ( 16 bit integer )
 owner's group ID ( 16 bit integer )
 File access mode word
'r w x - r w x - r w x'
(user permission - group permission - others permission)
r-read, w-write, x-execute.

To change the access mode, we use chmod(filename,mode).
Example 1:
To change mode of myfile to 'rw-rw-r--' (ie. read, write permission for user - read,write permission for group - only read permission for others) we give the args as:
chmod(myfile,0664) .
Each operation is represented by discrete values
'r' is 4
'w' is 2
'x' is 1
Therefore, for 'rw' the value is 6(4+2).
Example 2:
To change mode of myfile to 'rwxr--r--' we give the args as:
chmod(myfile,0744).

8. What are links and symbolic links in UNIX file system?
A link is a second name for a file. Links can be used to assign more than one name to a file, but they cannot be used to assign a directory more than one name or to link filenames on different computers.
Symbolic link 'is' a file that only contains the name of another file. Operation on the symbolic link is directed to the file pointed by the it. Both the limitations of links are eliminated in symbolic links.
Commands for linking files are:
Link ln filename1 filename2
Symbolic link ln -s filename1 filename2

9. What is a FIFO?
FIFO are otherwise called as 'named pipes'. FIFO (first-in-first-out) is a special file that is said to be ‘data transient’. Once data is read from named pipe, it cannot be read again. Also, data can be read only in the order written. It is used in interprocess communication where a process writes to one end of the pipe (producer) and the other reads from the other end (consumer).

10. How do you create special files like named pipes and device files?
The system call mknod creates special files in the following sequence:
1. kernel assigns new inode,
2. sets the file type to indicate that the file is a pipe, directory or special file,
3. If it is a device file, it makes the other entries like major, minor device numbers.
For example: If the device is a disk, major device number refers to the disk controller and minor device number refers the disk.

11. Discuss the mount and unmount system calls
The privileged mount system call is used to attach a file system to a directory of another file system; the unmount system call detaches a file system. When you mount another file system on to your directory, you are essentially splicing one directory tree onto a branch in another directory tree. The first argument to mount call is the mount point, that is, a directory in the current file naming system. The second argument is the file system to mount to that point. When you insert a cdrom to your Unix system's drive, the file system in the cdrom automatically mounts to /dev/cdrom in your system.

12. What are surrogate super blocks and surrogate inode tables?
Whenever we use any file or change its permissions, these changes should be made on the disk; but this can be time consuming. Hence a copy of the super block and an inode table is maintained in the RAM that are called as the surrogate super blocks and inode tables respectively.
The ‘sync’ command synchronizes the inode table in the memory with the one on the disk by simply overwriting the memory copy on to the disk.

13. Assuming the block size to be 1KB calculate the maximum size of a file in the Unix file system.
The first 10 data block pointers can point to 10 data blocks each of size 1 KB .
The 11 th pointer points to a table of block pointers the table has 256 pointers each pointing to data block of size 1 KB. Similarly the 12 th pointer can address
(256 X 256KB) i.e. 64 MB and the 13 th pointer (256 X 64 MB) => 16 GB. Hence the maximum size of the file is 10 KB + 256 KB + 64 MB + 16 GB.

14. What are the uses of these disk related commands: df, dfspace, du and ulimit?
$ df - reports the free as well as used disk space,
$ dfspace - same as df but is more explanatory,
$ du - shows the disk space used by a specified file,
$ ulimit - avoids the user from creating files of very large size.

Section – II
Process Management

1. Brief about the initial process sequence while the system boots up.
While booting, special process called the 'swapper' or 'scheduler' is created with the Process-ID 0. The swapper manages memory allocation for processes and influences CPU allocation. The swapper inturn creates 3 children:
 the process dispatcher,
 vhand and
 dbflush
with IDs 1,2 and 3 respectively.
This is done by executing the file /etc/init. Process dispatcher gives birth to the shell. Unix keeps track of all the processes in an internal data structure called the Process Table (listing command is ps -el).

2. What are various IDs associated with a process?
Unix identifies each process with an unique integer called ProcessID (PID). The process that executes the request for creation of a process is called the 'parent process' of the newly created process.
Every process is associated with a particular user called the 'owner' who initiates the process and has privileges over the process. The identification for the user is 'UserID'. Process also has 'Effective User ID' that determines the access privileges for accessing resources like files. The system calls used for getting the various IDs are:
getpid() - process id
getppid() - parent process id
getuid() - user id
geteuid() - effective user id

3. What is the range of values PID can take?
PID can range from 0 to 32767.
4. What are the process states in Unix?
As a process executes it changes state according to its circumstances. Unix processes have the following states:
Running : The process is either running or it is ready to run .
Waiting : The process is waiting for an event or for a resource.
Stopped : The process has been stopped, usually by receiving a signal.
Zombie : The process is dead but have not been removed from the process table.

5. What Happens when you execute a program?
When you execute a program on your UNIX system, the system creates a special environment for that program. This environment contains everything needed for the system to run the program as if no other program were running on the system. Each process has process context, which is everything that is unique about the state of the program you are currently running. Every time you execute a program the UNIX system does a fork, which performs a series of operations to create a process context and then execute your program in that context. The steps include the following:
 Allocate a slot in the process table, a list of currently running programs kept by UNIX.
 Assign a unique process identifier (PID) to the process.
 iCopy the context of the parent, the process that requested the spawning of the new process.
 Return the new PID to the parent process. This enables the parent process to examine or control the process directly.
After the fork is complete, UNIX runs your program.

6. What Happens when you execute a command?
When you enter 'ls' command to look at the contents of your current working directory, UNIX does a series of things to create an environment for ls and the run it: The shell has UNIX perform a fork. This creates a new process that the shell will use to run the ls program. The shell has UNIX perform an exec of the ls program. This replaces the shell program and data with the program and data for ls and then starts running that new program. The ls program is loaded into the new process context, replacing the text and data of the shell. The ls program performs its task, listing the contents of the current directory.

7. What is a zombie process?
When a program forks and the child finishes before the parent, the kernel still keeps some of its information about the child in case the parent might need it - for example, the parent may need to check the child's exit status. To be able to get this information, the parent calls `wait()'; In the interval between the child terminating and the parent calling `wait()', the child is said to be a `zombie' (If you do `ps', the child will have a `Z' in its status field to indicate this.)

8. What is a daemon process?
A daemon is a process that detaches itself from the terminal and runs, disconnected, in the background, waiting for requests and responding to them. It can also be defined as the background process that does not belong to a terminal session. Many system functions are commonly performed by daemons, including the sendmail daemon, which handles mail, and the NNTP daemon, which handles USENET news. Many other daemons may exist. Some of the most common daemons are:
 init: Takes over the basic running of the system when the kernel has finished the boot process.
 inetd: Responsible for starting network services that do not have their own stand-alone daemons. For example, inetd usually takes care of incoming rlogin, telnet, and ftp connections.
 cron: Responsible for running repetitive tasks on a regular schedule.
Daemons can be roughly classified as system and user daemons.

9. What is an advantage of executing a process in background?
The most common reason to put a process in the background is to allow you to do something else interactively without waiting for the process to complete. At the end of the command you add the special background symbol, &. This symbol tells your shell to execute the given command in the background.
Example: cp *.* ../backup& (cp is for copy)

10. How do you execute one program from within another?
The system calls used for low-level process creation are execlp() and execvp(). The execlp call overlays the existing program with the new one , runs that and exits. The original program gets back control only when an error occurs.
execlp(path,file_name,arguments..);
//last argument must be NULL
A variant of execlp called execvp is used when the number of arguments is not known in advance.
execvp(path,argument_array);
//argument array should be terminated by NULL

11. List the system calls used for process management:
System calls Description
fork() To create a new process
exec() To execute a new program in a process
wait() To wait until a created process completes its execution
exit() To exit from a process execution
getpid() To get a process identifier of the current process
getppid() To get parent process identifier
nice() To bias the existing priority of a process
brk() To increase/decrease the data segment size of a process

12. Explain fork() system call.
The `fork()' used to create a new process from an existing process. The new process is called the child process, and the existing process is called the parent. We can tell which is which by checking the return value from `fork()'. The parent gets the child's pid returned to him, but the child gets 0 returned to him.

13. Predict the output of the following program code
main(){
fork();
printf("Hello World!");
}
Answer:
Hello World!Hello World!
Explanation:
The fork creates a child that is a duplicate of the parent process. The child begins from the fork().All the statements after the call to fork() will be executed twice.(once by the parent process and other by child). The statement before fork() is executed only by the parent process.

14. Predict the output of the following program code
main(){
fork(); fork(); fork();
printf("Hello World!");
}
Answer:
"Hello World" will be printed 8 times.
Explanation:
2^n times where n is the number of calls to fork()

15. How can you get/set an environment variable from a program?
Getting the value of an environment variable is done by using `getenv()'. Setting the value of an environment variable is done by using `putenv()'.

16. How can a parent and child process communicate?
A parent and child can communicate through any of the normal inter-process communication schemes (pipes, sockets, message queues, shared memory), but also have some special ways to communicate that take advantage of their relationship as a parent and child. One of the most obvious is that the parent can get the exit status of the child.

17. What is IPC? What are the various schemes available?
The term IPC (Inter-Process Communication) describes various ways by which different processes running on some operating system communicate between each other. Various schemes available are as follows:
Pipes:
One-way communication scheme through which different process can communicate. The problem is that the two processes should have a common ancestor (parent-child relationship). However this problem was fixed with the introduction of named-pipes (FIFO).
Message Queues :
Message queues can be used between related and unrelated processes running on a machine.
Shared Memory:
This is the fastest of all IPC schemes. The memory to be shared is mapped into the address space of the processes (that are sharing). The speed achieved is attributed to the fact that there is no kernel involvement. But this scheme needs synchronization.
Various forms of synchronisation are mutexes, condition-variables, read-write locks, record-locks, and semaphores.

18. Explain 'ps' command and its purpose.
The ps command prints the process status for some or all of the running processes. The information given are the process identification number (PID), the amount of time that the process has taken to execute so far etc.
The options used in this command are
$ ps –a :: Lists the processes running for other users.
$ ps –t :: Lists the processes running in a particular terminal.
$ ps –f :: Lists the processes along with PPID.
$ ps –e :: Lists every process running at that instance.

19. How would you kill a process?
The kill command takes the PID as one argument; this identifies which process to terminate. The PID of a process can be got using 'ps' command.

20. For some reason, the process with PID 6173 could not be terminated with the command ‘$ kill 6173’. What could be the reason and how can you terminate that process?
The kill command when invoked sends a termination signal to the process being killed. Since the signal number is not specified unix assumes the default signal number which cannot kill certain high priority processes.
In such cases we can use the signal number 9 ‘$ kill –9 6173’.

19. What is a shell?
A shell is an interactive user interface to services of an operating system, that allows an user to enter commands as character strings or through a graphical user interface. The shell converts them to system calls to the OS or forks off a process to execute the command. Results of the system calls and other information from the OS are presented to the user through an interactive interface. Commonly used shells are sh,csh,ks etc.

21. Explain about the process priority values.
Each process is assigned a priority value; higher the value lesser is its priority. The priority value for a process can range from 0 to 39. The default priority value for a process is 20. A user is allowed to increase the value but he cannot decrease it.

22. What does the command ‘$ nice –15 cat emp.dat’ do?
The priority value of the cat emp.dat command is increased form 20 to 35 This will slower the command as higher priority value means lesser priority.

23. Write a command such that at exactly 5 pm the message “time is 5 pm” appears on the terminal named tty3c.
$ at 17:00
echo “time is 5 pm” > /dev/tty3c
ctrl d
$

24. What does the batch command do?
The batch command lets the system decide the best time for executing our commands. It may not execute the commands immediately. The batch command will be queued and executed when the system is free.

25. How is ‘crontab‘ command different from ‘at’ ?
The crontab can carry out a submitted job every day for years together without any prompting form the user. The ‘at’ command is valid only for a day.

Section - III
Memory Management

1. What is the difference between Swapping and Paging?
Swapping:
Whole process is moved from the swap device to the main memory for execution. Process size must be less than or equal to the available main memory. It is easier to implementation and overhead to the system. Swapping systems does not handle the memory more flexibly as compared to the paging systems.
Paging:
Only the required memory pages are moved to main memory from the swap device for execution. Process size does not matter. Gives the concept of the virtual memory.
It provides greater flexibility in mapping the virtual address space into the physical memory of the machine. Allows more number of processes to fit in the main memory simultaneously. Allows the greater process size than the available physical memory. Demand paging systems handle the memory more flexibly.

2. What is the major difference between the Historic Unix and the new BSD release of Unix System V in terms of Memory Management?
Historic Unix uses Swapping – entire process is transferred to the main memory from the swap device, whereas the Unix System V uses Demand Paging – only the part of the process is moved to the main memory. Historic Unix uses one Swap Device and Unix System V allow multiple Swap Devices.

3. What is the main goal of the Memory Management?
 It decides which process should reside in the main memory,
 Manages the parts of the virtual address space of a process which is non-core resident,
 Monitors the available main memory and periodically write the processes into the swap device to provide more processes fit in the main memory simultaneously.

4. What is a Map?
A Map is an Array, which contains the addresses of the free space in the swap device that are allocatable resources, and the number of the resource units available there.

This allows First-Fit allocation of contiguous blocks of a resource. Initially the Map contains one entry – address (block offset from the starting of the swap are and the total number of resources.
Kernel treats each unit of Map as a group of disk blocks. On the allocation and freeing of the resources Kernel updates the Map for accurate information.

5. What is a Region?
A Region is a continuous area of a process’s address space (such as text, data and stack). The kernel in a ‘Region Table’ that is local to the process maintains region. Regions are sharable among the process.

6. What are the events done by the Kernel after a process is being swapped out from the main memory?
When Kernel swaps the process out of the primary memory, it performs the following:
 Kernel decrements the Reference Count of each region of the process. If the reference count becomes zero, swaps the region out of the main memory,
 Kernel allocates the space for the swapping process in the swap device,
 Kernel locks the other swapping process while the current swapping operation is going on,
 The Kernel saves the swap address of the region in the region table.

7. Is the Process before and after the swap are the same? Give reason.
Process before swapping is residing in the primary memory in its original form. The regions (text, data and stack) may not be occupied fully by the process, there may be few empty slots in any of the regions and while swapping Kernel do not bother about the empty slots while swapping the process out.
After swapping the process resides in the swap (secondary memory) device. The regions swapped out will be present but only the occupied region slots but not the empty slots that were present before assigning.
While swapping the process once again into the main memory, the Kernel referring to the Process Memory Map, it assigns the main memory accordingly taking care of the empty slots in the regions.

8. What do you mean by u-area (user area or u-block)?
This contains the private data that is manipulated only by the Kernel. This is local to the Process, i.e. each process is allocated a u-area.

9. What are the entities that are swapped out of the main memory while swapping the process out of the main memory?
All memory space occupied by the process, process’s u-area, and Kernel stack are swapped out, theoretically.
Practically, if the process’s u-area contains the Address Translation Tables for the process then Kernel implementations do not swap the u-area.

10. What is Fork swap?
fork() is a system call to create a child process. When the parent process calls fork() system call, the child process is created and if there is short of memory then the child process is sent to the read-to-run state in the swap device, and return to the user state without swapping the parent process. When the memory will be available the child process will be swapped into the main memory.

11. What is Expansion swap?
At the time when any process requires more memory than it is currently allocated, the Kernel performs Expansion swap. To do this Kernel reserves enough space in the swap device. Then the address translation mapping is adjusted for the new virtual address space but the physical memory is not allocated. At last Kernel swaps the process into the assigned space in the swap device. Later when the Kernel swaps the process into the main memory this assigns memory according to the new address translation mapping.

12. How the Swapper works?
The swapper is the only process that swaps the processes. The Swapper operates only in the Kernel mode and it does not uses System calls instead it uses internal Kernel functions for swapping. It is the archetype of all kernel process.

13. What are the processes that are not bothered by the swapper? Give Reason.
 Zombie process: They do not take up any physical memory.
 Processes locked in memories that are updating the region of the process.
 Kernel swaps only the sleeping processes rather than the ‘ready-to-run’ processes, as they have the higher probability of being scheduled than the sleeping processes.

14. What are the requirements for a swapper to work?
The swapper works on the highest scheduling priority. Firstly it will look for any sleeping process, if not found then it will look for the ready-to-run process for swapping. But the major requirement for the swapper to work the ready-to-run process must be core-resident for few seconds before swapping out. And for swapping in the process must have been resided in the swap device for few seconds. If the requirement is not satisfied then the swapper will go into the wait state on that event and it is awaken once in a second by the Kernel.

15. What are the criteria for choosing a process for swapping into memory from the swap device?
The resident time of the processes in the swap device, the priority of the processes and the amount of time the processes had been swapped out.

16. What are the criteria for choosing a process for swapping out of the memory to the swap device?
 The process’s memory resident time,
 Priority of the process and
 The nice value.

17. What do you mean by nice value?
Nice value is the value that controls {increments or decrements} the priority of the process. This value that is returned by the nice () system call. The equation for using nice value is:
Priority = (“recent CPU usage”/constant) + (base- priority) + (nice value)
Only the administrator can supply the nice value. The nice () system call works for the running process only. Nice value of one process cannot affect the nice value of the other process.

18. What are conditions on which deadlock can occur while swapping the processes?
 All processes in the main memory are asleep.
 All ‘ready-to-run’ processes are swapped out.
 There is no space in the swap device for the new incoming process that are swapped out of the main memory.
 There is no space in the main memory for the new incoming process.

19. What are conditions for a machine to support Demand Paging?
 Memory architecture must based on Pages,
 The machine must support the ‘restartable’ instructions.

20. What is ‘the principle of locality’?
It’s the nature of the processes that they refer only to the small subset of the total data space of the process. i.e. the process frequently calls the same subroutines or executes the loop instructions.

21. What is the working set of a process?
The set of pages that are referred by the process in the last ‘n’, references, where ‘n’ is called the window of the working set of the process.

22. What is the window of the working set of a process?
The window of the working set of a process is the total number in which the process had referred the set of pages in the working set of the process.

23. What is called a page fault?
Page fault is referred to the situation when the process addresses a page in the working set of the process but the process fails to locate the page in the working set. And on a page fault, the kernel updates the working set by reading the page from the secondary device.

24. What are data structures that are used for Demand Paging?
Kernel contains 4 data structures for Demand paging. They are,
 Page table entries,
 Disk block descriptors,
 Page frame data table (pfdat),
 Swap-use table.

26. What are the bits(UNIX System V) that support the demand paging?
Valid, Reference, Modify, Copy on write, Age. These bits are the part of the page table entry, which includes physical address of the page and protection bits.

Page address Age Copy on write Modify Reference Valid Protection

27. Difference between the fork() and vfork() system call?
During the fork() system call the Kernel makes a copy of the parent process’s address space and attaches it to the child process.
But the vfork() system call do not makes any copy of the parent’s address space, so it is faster than the fork() system call. The child process as a result of the vfork() system call executes exec() system call. The child process from vfork() system call executes in the parent’s address space (this can overwrite the parent’s data and stack ) which suspends the parent process until the child process exits.

28. What is BSS(Block Started by Symbol)?
A data representation at the machine level, that has initial values when a program starts and tells about how much space the kernel allocates for the un-initialized data. Kernel initializes it to zero at run-time.

29. What is Page-Stealer process?
This is the Kernel process that makes rooms for the incoming pages, by swapping the memory pages that are not the part of the working set of a process. Page-Stealer is created by the Kernel at the system initialization and invokes it throughout the lifetime of the system. Kernel locks a region when a process faults on a page in the region, so that page stealer cannot steal the page, which is being faulted in.

30. Name two paging states for a page in memory?
The two paging states are:
 The page is aging and is not yet eligible for swapping,
 The page is eligible for swapping but not yet eligible for reassignment to other virtual address space.

31. What are the phases of swapping a page from the memory?
 Page stealer finds the page eligible for swapping and places the page number in the list of pages to be swapped.
 Kernel copies the page to a swap device when necessary and clears the valid bit in the page table entry, decrements the pfdata reference count, and places the pfdata table entry at the end of the free list if its reference count is 0.

33. What is page fault? Its types?
Page fault refers to the situation of not having a page in the main memory when any process references it.
There are two types of page fault :
 Validity fault,
 Protection fault.

34. What is validity fault?
If a process referring a page in the main memory whose valid bit is not set, it results in validity fault.
The valid bit is not set for those pages:
 that are outside the virtual address space of a process,
 that are the part of the virtual address space of the process but no physical address is assigned to it.

35. What do you mean by the protection fault?
Protection fault refers to the process accessing the pages, which do not have the access permission. A process also incur the protection fault when it attempts to write a page whose copy on write bit (UNIX System V) was set during the fork() system call.

36. In what way the Fault Handlers and the Interrupt handlers are different?
Fault handlers are also an interrupt handler with an exception that the interrupt handlers cannot sleep. Fault handlers sleep in the context of the process that caused the memory fault. The fault refers to the running process and no arbitrary processes are put to sleep.

37. What does the swapping system do if it identifies the illegal page for swapping?
If the disk block descriptor does not contain any record of the faulted page, then this causes the attempted memory reference is invalid and the kernel sends a “Segmentation violation” signal to the offending process. This happens when the swapping system identifies any invalid memory reference.

38. What are states that the page can be in, after causing a page fault?
 On a swap device and not in memory,
 On the free page list in the main memory,
 In an executable file,
 Marked “demand zero”,
 Marked “demand fill”.

39. In what way the validity fault handler concludes?
 It sets the valid bit of the page by clearing the modify bit.
 It recalculates the process priority.

40. At what mode the fault handler executes?
At the kernel mode.

41. How the Kernel handles the copy on write bit of a page, when the bit is set?
In situations like, where the copy on write bit (UNIX System V) of a page is set and that page is shared by more than one process, the Kernel allocates new page and copies the content to the new page and the other processes retain their references to the old page. After copying the Kernel updates the page table entry with the new page number. Then Kernel decrements the reference count of the old pfdata table entry.
In cases like, where the copy on write bit is set and no processes are sharing the page, the Kernel allows the physical page to be reused by the processes. By doing so, it clears the copy on write bit and disassociates the page from its disk copy (if one exists), because other process may share the disk copy. Then it removes the pfdata table entry from the page-queue as the new copy of the virtual page is not on the swap device. It decrements the swap-use count for the page and if count drops to 0, frees the swap space.

42. For which kind of fault the page is checked first?
The page is first checked for the validity fault, as soon as it is found that the page is invalid (valid bit is clear), the validity fault handler returns immediately, and the process incur the validity page fault. Kernel handles the validity fault and the process will incur the protection fault if any one is present.

43. In what way the protection fault handler concludes?
After finishing the execution of the fault handler, it sets the modify and protection bits and clears the copy on write bit (all bits as in UNIX System V). It recalculates the process-priority and checks for signals.

44. How the Kernel handles both the page stealer and the fault handler?
The page stealer and the fault handler thrash pages because of the shortage of memory. If the sum of the working sets of all processes is greater that the physical memory then the fault handler will usually sleep because it cannot allocate pages for a process. This results in the reduction of the system throughput because Kernel spends too much time in overhead, rearranging the memory in a fast pace.

64 interview quetions

2007-08-19T08:22:00.000-07:00

How to Answer
The 64 Toughest
Interview
Questions

THIS BOOK IS DESIGNED TO PROVIDE ACCURATE INFORMATION ON THE SUBJECTS COVERED. HOWEVER, IT IS DONE WITH THE UNDERSTANDING THAT THE PUBLISHER IS NOT ENGAGED IN RENDERING LEGAL, ACCOUNTING OR PROFESSIONAL SERVICES. IF LEGAL ADVICE OR OTHER PROFESSIONAL ASSSTANCE IS REQUIRED, THE SERVICES OF A COMPETENT, PROFESSIONAL PERSON SHOUID BE SOUGHT. ANY NAMES USED IN THE TEXT ARE FICTITIOUS AND FOR ILLUSTRATIVE PURPOSES ONLY. ANY RESEMBLANCE TO ACTUAL PERSONS OR COMPANIES IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL AND UNINTENTIONAL.

Dedication:
This report is dedicated to courage and knowledge,
the two qualities most needed
to succeed in any human challenge,
especially a job search.

Table of Contents

General Guidelines in Answering Interview Questions 3
Q1 Tell me about yourself. 5
Q2 What are your greatest strengths? 6
Q3 What are your greatest weaknesses? 6
Q4 Tell me about something you did – or failed to do – that you now feel a little ashamed of. 7
Q5 Why are you leaving (or did you leave) this position? 8
Q6 The “Silent Treatment” 9
Q7 Why should I hire you? 9
Q8 Aren’t you overqualified for this position? 10
Q9 Where do you see yourself five years from now? 11
Q10 Describe your ideal company, location and job. 12
Q11 Why do you want to work at our company? 12
Q12 What are your career options right now? 12
Q13 Why have you been out of work so long? 13
Q14 Tell me honestly about the strong points and weak points of your boss (company, management team, etc.)… 13
Q15 What good books have you read lately? 14
Q16 Tell me about a situation when your work was criticized. 14
Q17 What are your outside interest? 15
Q18 The “Fatal Flaw” question 15
Q19 How do you feel about reporting to a younger person (minority, woman, etc)? 16
Q20 On confidential matters… 16
Q21 Would you lie for the company? 17
Q22 Looking back, what would you do differently in your life? 17
Q23 Could you have done better in your last job? 18
Q24 Can you work under pressure? 18
Q25 What makes you angry? 18
Q26 Why aren’t you earning more money at this stage of your career? 19
Q27 Who has inspired you in your life and why? 19
Q28 What was the toughest decision you ever had to make? 20
Q29 Tell me about the most boring job you’ve ever had. 20
Q30 Have you been absent from work more than a few days in any previous position? 20
Q31 What changes would you make if you came on board? 21
Q32 I’m concerned that you don’t have as much experience as we’d like in… 21
Q33 How do you feel about working nights and weekends? 22
Q34 Are you willing to relocate or travel? 23
Q35 Do you have the stomach to fire people? Have you had experience firing many people? 23
Q36 Why have you had so many jobs? 24
Q37 What do you see as the proper role/mission of… …a good (job title you’re seeking); …a good manager; …an executive in serving the community; …a leading company in our industry; etc. 25
Q38 What would you say to your boss if he’s crazy about an idea, but you think it stinks? 25
Q39 How could you have improved your career progress? 26
Q40 What would you do if a fellow executive on your own corporate level wasn’t pulling his/her weight…and this was hurting your department? 26
Q41 You’ve been with your firm a long time. Won’t it be hard switching to a new company? 27
Q42 May I contact your present employer for a reference? 27
Q43 Give me an example of your creativity (analytical skill…managing ability, etc.) 28
Q44 Where could you use some improvement? 28
Q45 What do you worry about? 28
Q46 How many hours a week do you normally work? 28
Q47 What’s the most difficult part of being a (job title)? 29
Q48 The “Hypothetical Problem” 29
Q49 What was the toughest challenge you’ve ever faced? 29
Q50 Have you consider starting your own business? 30
Q51 What are your goals? 31
Q52 What do you for when you hire people? 31
Q53 Sell me this stapler…(this pencil…this clock…or some other object on interviewer’s desk). 31
Q54 “The Salary Question” – How much money do you want? 33
Q55 The Illegal Question 33
Q56 The “Secret” Illegal Question 34
Q57 What was the toughest part of your last job? 35
Q58 How do you define success…and how do you measure up to your own definition?. 35
Q59 “The Opinion Question” – What do you think about …Abortion…The President…The Death Penalty…(or any other controversial subject)? 36
Q60 If you won $10 million lottery, would you still work? 36
Q61 Looking back on your last position, have you done your best work? 37
Q62 Why should I hire you from the outside when I could promote someone from within? 37
Q63 Tell me something negative you’ve heard about our company… 38
Q64 On a scale of one to ten, rate me as an interviewer. 38

General Guidelines
in Answering Interview Questions
Everyone is nervous on interviews. If you simply allow yourself to feel nervous, you'll do much better. Remember also that it's difficult for the interviewer as well.
In general, be upbeat and positive. Never be negative.
Rehearse your answers and time them. Never talk for more than 2 minutes straight.
Don't try to memorize answers word for word. Use the answers shown here as a guide only, and don't be afraid to include your own thoughts and words. To help you remember key concepts, jot down and review a few key words for each answer. Rehearse your answers frequently, and they will come to you naturally in interviews.
As you will read in the accompanying report, the single most important strategy in interviewing, as in all phases of your job search, is what we call: "The Greatest Executive Job Finding Secret." And that is...
Find out what people want, than show them how you can help them get it.
Find out what an employer wants most in his or her ideal candidate, then show how you meet those qualifications.
In other words, you must match your abilities, with the needs of the employer. You must sell what the buyer is buying. To do that, before you know what to emphasize in your answers, you must find out what the buyer is buying... what he is looking for. And the best way to do that is to ask a few questions yourself.
You will see how to bring this off skillfully as you read the first two questions of this report. But regardless of how you accomplish it, you must remember this strategy above all: before blurting out your qualifications, you must get some idea of what the employer wants most. Once you know what he wants, you can then present your qualifications as the perfect “key” that fits the “lock” of that position.
• Other important interview strategies:
• Turn weaknesses into strengths (You'll see how to do this in a few moments.)
• Think before you answer. A pause to collect your thoughts is a hallmark of a thoughtful person.
As a daily exercise, practice being more optimistic. For example, try putting a positive spin on events and situations you would normally regard as negative. This is not meant to turn you into a Pollyanna, but to sharpen your selling skills. The best salespeople, as well as the best liked interview candidates, come off as being naturally optimistic, "can do" people. You will dramatically raise your level of attractiveness by daily practicing to be more optimistic.
Be honest...never lie.
Keep an interview diary. Right after each interview note what you did right, what could have gone a little better, and what steps you should take next with this contact. Then take those steps. Don't be like the 95% of humanity who say they will follow up on something, but never do.
About the 64 questions...
You might feel that the answers to the following questions are “canned”, and that they will seldom match up with the exact way you are asked the questions in actual interviews. The questions and answers are designed to be as specific and realistic as possible. But no preparation can anticipate thousands of possible variations on these questions. What's important is that you thoroughly familiarize yourself with the main strategies behind each answer. And it will be invaluable to you if you commit to memory a few key words that let you instantly call to mind your best answer to the various questions. If you do this, and follow the principles of successful interviewing presented here, you're going to do very well.
Good luck...and good job-hunting!

Question 1 Tell me about yourself.
TRAPS: Beware, about 80% of all interviews begin with this “innocent” question. Many candidates, unprepared for the question, skewer themselves by rambling, recapping their life story, delving into ancient work history or personal matters.
BEST ANSWER: Start with the present and tell why you are well qualified for the position. Remember that the key to all successful interviewing is to match your qualifications to what the interviewer is looking for. In other words you must sell what the buyer is buying. This is the single most important strategy in job hunting.
So, before you answer this or any question it's imperative that you try to uncover your interviewer's greatest need, want, problem or goal.
To do so, make you take these two steps:
1. Do all the homework you can before the interview to uncover this person's wants and needs (not the generalized needs of the industry or company)
2. As early as you can in the interview, ask for a more complete description of what the position entails. You might say: “I have a number of accomplishments I'd like to tell you about, but I want to make the best use of our time together and talk directly to your needs. To help me do, that, could you tell me more about the most important priorities of this position? All I know is what I (heard from the recruiter, read in the classified ad, etc.)”
Then, ALWAYS follow-up with a second and possibly, third question, to draw out his needs even more. Surprisingly, it's usually this second or third question that unearths what the interviewer is most looking for.
You might ask simply, "And in addition to that?..." or, "Is there anything else you see as essential to success in this position?:
This process will not feel easy or natural at first, because it is easier simply to answer questions, but only if you uncover the employer's wants and needs will your answers make the most sense. Practice asking these key questions before giving your answers, the process will feel more natural and you will be light years ahead of the other job candidates you're competing with.
After uncovering what the employer is looking for, describe why the needs of this job bear striking parallels to tasks you've succeeded at before. Be sure to illustrate with specific examples of your responsibilities and especially your achievements, all of which are geared to present yourself as a perfect match for the needs he has just described.
Question 2 What are your greatest strengths?
TRAPS: This question seems like a softball lob, but be prepared. You don't want to come across as egotistical or arrogant. Neither is this a time to be humble.
BEST ANSWER: You know that your key strategy is to first uncover your interviewer's greatest wants and needs before you answer questions. And from Question 1, you know how to do this.
Prior to any interview, you should have a list mentally prepared of your greatest strengths. You should also have, a specific example or two, which illustrates each strength, an example chosen from your most recent and most impressive achievements.
You should, have this list of your greatest strengths and corresponding examples from your achievements so well committed to memory that you can recite them cold after being shaken awake at 2:30AM.
Then, once you uncover your interviewer's greatest wants and needs, you can choose those achievements from your list that best match up.
As a general guideline, the 10 most desirable traits that all employers love to see in their employees are:
1. A proven track record as an achiever...especially if your achievements match up with the employer's greatest wants and needs.
2. Intelligence...management "savvy".
3. Honesty...integrity...a decent human being.
4. Good fit with corporate culture...someone to feel comfortable with...a team player who meshes well with interviewer's team.
5. Likeability...positive attitude...sense of humor.
6. Good communication skills.
7. Dedication...willingness to walk the extra mile to achieve excellence.
8. Definiteness of purpose...clear goals.
9. Enthusiasm...high level of motivation.
10. Confident...healthy...a leader.
Question 3 What are your greatest weaknesses?
TRAPS: Beware - this is an eliminator question, designed to shorten the candidate list. Any admission of a weakness or fault will earn you an “A” for honesty, but an “F” for the interview.
PASSABLE ANSWER: Disguise a strength as a weakness.
Example: “I sometimes push my people too hard. I like to work with a sense of urgency and everyone is not always on the same wavelength.”
Drawback: This strategy is better than admitting a flaw, but it's so widely used, it is transparent to any experienced interviewer.
BEST ANSWER: (and another reason it's so important to get a thorough description of your interviewer's needs before you answer questions): Assure the interviewer that you can think of nothing that would stand in the way of your performing in this position with excellence. Then, quickly review you strongest qualifications.
Example: “Nobody's perfect, but based on what you've told me about this position, I believe I' d make an outstanding match. I know that when I hire people, I look for two things most of all. Do they have the qualifications to do the job well, and the motivation to do it well? Everything in my background shows I have both the qualifications and a strong desire to achieve excellence in whatever I take on. So I can say in all honesty that I see nothing that would cause you even a small concern about my ability or my strong desire to perform this job with excellence.”
Alternate strategy (if you don't yet know enough about the position to talk about such a perfect fit):
Instead of confessing a weakness, describe what you like most and like least, making sure that what you like most matches up with the most important qualification for success in the position, and what you like least is not essential.
Example: Let's say you're applying for a teaching position. “If given a choice, I like to spend as much time as possible in front of my prospects selling, as opposed to shuffling paperwork back at the office. Of course, I long ago learned the importance of filing paperwork properly, and I do it conscientiously. But what I really love to do is sell (if your interviewer were a sales manager, this should be music to his ears.)
Question 4 Tell me about something you did – or failed to do – that you now feel a little ashamed of.
TRAPS: There are some questions your interviewer has no business asking, and this is one. But while you may feel like answering, “none of your business,” naturally you can’t. Some interviewers ask this question on the chance you admit to something, but if not, at least they’ll see how you think on your feet.
Some unprepared candidates, flustered by this question, unburden themselves of guilt from their personal life or career, perhaps expressing regrets regarding a parent, spouse, child, etc. All such answers can be disastrous.
BEST ANSWER: As with faults and weaknesses, never confess a regret. But don’t seem as if you’re stonewalling either.
Best strategy: Say you harbor no regrets, then add a principle or habit you practice regularly for healthy human relations.
Example: Pause for reflection, as if the question never occurred to you. Then say, “You know, I really can’t think of anything.” (Pause again, then add): “I would add that as a general management principle, I’ve found that the best way to avoid regrets is to avoid causing them in the first place. I practice one habit that helps me a great deal in this regard. At the end of each day, I mentally review the day’s events and conversations to take a second look at the people and developments I’m involved with and do a doublecheck of what they’re likely to be feeling. Sometimes I’ll see things that do need more follow-up, whether a pat on the back, or maybe a five minute chat in someone’s office to make sure we’re clear on things…whatever.”
“I also like to make each person feel like a member of an elite team, like the Boston Celtics or LA Lakers in their prime. I’ve found that if you let each team member know you expect excellence in their performance…if you work hard to set an example yourself…and if you let people know you appreciate and respect their feelings, you wind up with a highly motivated group, a team that’s having fun at work because they’re striving for excellence rather than brooding over slights or regrets.”
Question 5 Why are you leaving (or did you leave) this position?
TRAPS: Never badmouth your previous industry, company, board, boss, staff, employees or customers. This rule is inviolable: never be negative. Any mud you hurl will only soil your suit.
Especially avoid words like “personality clash”, “didn’t get along”, or others which cast a shadow on your competence, integrity, or temperament.
BEST ANSWER:
(If you have a job presently)
If you’re not yet 100% committed to leaving your present post, don’t be afraid to say so. Since you have a job, you are in a stronger position than someone who does not. But don’t be coy either. State honestly what you’d be hoping to find in a new spot. Of course, as stated often before, you answer will all the stronger if you have already uncovered what this position is all about and you match your desires to it.
(If you do not presently have a job.)
Never lie about having been fired. It’s unethical – and too easily checked. But do try to deflect the reason from you personally. If your firing was the result of a takeover, merger, division wide layoff, etc., so much the better.
But you should also do something totally unnatural that will demonstrate consummate professionalism. Even if it hurts , describe your own firing – candidly, succinctly and without a trace of bitterness – from the company’s point-of-view, indicating that you could understand why it happened and you might have made the same decision yourself.
Your stature will rise immensely and, most important of all, you will show you are healed from the wounds inflicted by the firing. You will enhance your image as first-class management material and stand head and shoulders above the legions of firing victims who, at the slightest provocation, zip open their shirts to expose their battle scars and decry the unfairness of it all.
For all prior positions:
Make sure you’ve prepared a brief reason for leaving. Best reasons: more money, opportunity, responsibility or growth.
Question 6 The “Silent Treatment”
TRAPS: Beware – if you are unprepared for this question, you will probably not handle it right and possibly blow the interview. Thank goodness most interviewers don’t employ it. It’s normally used by those determined to see how you respond under stress. Here’s how it works:
You answer an interviewer’s question and then, instead of asking another, he just stares at you in a deafening silence.
You wait, growing a bit uneasy, and there he sits, silent as Mt. Rushmore, as if he doesn’t believe what you’ve just said, or perhaps making you feel that you’ve unwittingly violated some cardinal rule of interview etiquette.
When you get this silent treatment after answering a particularly difficult question , such as “tell me about your weaknesses”, its intimidating effect can be most disquieting, even to polished job hunters.
Most unprepared candidates rush in to fill the void of silence, viewing prolonged, uncomfortable silences as an invitation to clear up the previous answer which has obviously caused some problem. And that’s what they do – ramble on, sputtering more and more information, sometimes irrelevant and often damaging, because they are suddenly playing the role of someone who’s goofed and is now trying to recoup. But since the candidate doesn’t know where or how he goofed, he just keeps talking, showing how flustered and confused he is by the interviewer’s unmovable silence.
BEST ANSWER: Like a primitive tribal mask, the Silent Treatment loses all it power to frighten you once you refuse to be intimidated. If your interviewer pulls it, keep quiet yourself for a while and then ask, with sincere politeness and not a trace of sarcasm, “Is there anything else I can fill in on that point?” That’s all there is to it.
Whatever you do, don’t let the Silent Treatment intimidate you into talking a blue streak, because you could easily talk yourself out of the position.
Question 7 Why should I hire you?
TRAPS: Believe it or not, this is a killer question because so many candidates are unprepared for it. If you stammer or adlib you’ve blown it.
BEST ANSWER: By now you can see how critical it is to apply the overall strategy of uncovering the employer’s needs before you answer questions. If you know the employer’s greatest needs and desires, this question will give you a big leg up over other candidates because you will give him better reasons for hiring you than anyone else is likely to…reasons tied directly to his needs.
Whether your interviewer asks you this question explicitly or not, this is the most important question of your interview because he must answer this question favorably in is own mind before you will be hired. So help him out! Walk through each of the position’s requirements as you understand them, and follow each with a reason why you meet that requirement so well.
Example: “As I understand your needs, you are first and foremost looking for someone who can manage the sales and marketing of your book publishing division. As you’ve said you need someone with a strong background in trade book sales. This is where I’ve spent almost all of my career, so I’ve chalked up 18 years of experience exactly in this area. I believe that I know the right contacts, methods, principles, and successful management techniques as well as any person can in our industry.”
“You also need someone who can expand your book distribution channels. In my prior post, my innovative promotional ideas doubled, then tripled, the number of outlets selling our books. I’m confident I can do the same for you.”
“You need someone to give a new shot in the arm to your mail order sales, someone who knows how to sell in space and direct mail media. Here, too, I believe I have exactly the experience you need. In the last five years, I’ve increased our mail order book sales from $600,000 to $2,800,000, and now we’re the country’s second leading marketer of scientific and medical books by mail.” Etc., etc., etc.,
Every one of these selling “couplets” (his need matched by your qualifications) is a touchdown that runs up your score. IT is your best opportunity to outsell your competition.
Question 8 Aren’t you overqualified for this position?
TRAPS: The employer may be concerned that you’ll grow dissatisfied and leave.
BEST ANSWER: As with any objection, don’t view this as a sign of imminent defeat. It’s an invitation to teach the interviewer a new way to think about this situation, seeing advantages instead of drawbacks.
Example: “I recognize the job market for what it is – a marketplace. Like any marketplace, it’s subject to the laws of supply and demand. So ‘overqualified’ can be a relative term, depending on how tight the job market is. And right now, it’s very tight. I understand and accept that.”
“I also believe that there could be very positive benefits for both of us in this match.”
“Because of my unusually strong experience in ________________ , I could start to contribute right away, perhaps much faster than someone who’d have to be brought along more slowly.”
“There’s also the value of all the training and years of experience that other companies have invested tens of thousands of dollars to give me. You’d be getting all the value of that without having to pay an extra dime for it. With someone who has yet to acquire that experience, he’d have to gain it on your nickel.”
“I could also help you in many things they don’t teach at the Harvard Business School. For example…(how to hire, train, motivate, etc.) When it comes to knowing how to work well with people and getting the most out of them, there’s just no substitute for what you learn over many years of front-line experience. You company would gain all this, too.”
“From my side, there are strong benefits, as well. Right now, I am unemployed. I want to work, very much, and the position you have here is exactly what I love to do and am best at. I’ll be happy doing this work and that’s what matters most to me, a lot more that money or title.”
“Most important, I’m looking to make a long term commitment in my career now. I’ve had enough of job-hunting and want a permanent spot at this point in my career. I also know that if I perform this job with excellence, other opportunities cannot help but open up for me right here. In time, I’ll find many other ways to help this company and in so doing, help myself. I really am looking to make a long-term commitment.”
NOTE: The main concern behind the “overqualified” question is that you will leave your new employer as soon as something better comes your way. Anything you can say to demonstrate the sincerity of your commitment to the employer and reassure him that you’re looking to stay for the long-term will help you overcome this objection.
Question 9 Where do you see yourself five years from now?
TRAPS: One reason interviewers ask this question is to see if you’re settling for this position, using it merely as a stopover until something better comes along. Or they could be trying to gauge your level of ambition.
If you’re too specific, i.e., naming the promotions you someday hope to win, you’ll sound presumptuous. If you’re too vague, you’ll seem rudderless.
BEST ANSWER: Reassure your interviewer that you’re looking to make a long-term commitment…that this position entails exactly what you’re looking to do and what you do extremely well. As for your future, you believe that if you perform each job at hand with excellence, future opportunities will take care of themselves.
Example: “I am definitely interested in making a long-term commitment to my next position. Judging by what you’ve told me about this position, it’s exactly what I’m looking for and what I am very well qualified to do. In terms of my future career path, I’m confident that if I do my work with excellence, opportunities will inevitable open up for me. It’s always been that way in my career, and I’m confident I’ll have similar opportunities here.”
Question 10 Describe your ideal company, location and job.
TRAPS: This is often asked by an experienced interviewer who thinks you may be overqualified, but knows better than to show his hand by posing his objection directly. So he’ll use this question instead, which often gets a candidate to reveal that, indeed, he or she is looking for something other than the position at hand.
BEST ANSWER: The only right answer is to describe what this company is offering, being sure to make your answer believable with specific reasons, stated with sincerity, why each quality represented by this opportunity is attractive to you.
Remember that if you’re coming from a company that’s the leader in its field or from a glamorous or much admired company, industry, city or position, your interviewer and his company may well have an “Avis” complex. That is, they may feel a bit defensive about being “second best” to the place you’re coming from, worried that you may consider them bush league.
This anxiety could well be there even though you’ve done nothing to inspire it. You must go out of your way to assuage such anxiety, even if it’s not expressed, by putting their virtues high on the list of exactly what you’re looking for, providing credible reason for wanting these qualities.
If you do not express genuine enthusiasm for the firm, its culture, location, industry, etc., you may fail to answer this “Avis” complex objection and, as a result, leave the interviewer suspecting that a hot shot like you, coming from a Fortune 500 company in New York, just wouldn’t be happy at an unknown manufacturer based in Topeka, Kansas.
Question 11 Why do you want to work at our company?
TRAPS: This question tests whether you’ve done any homework about the firm. If you haven’t, you lose. If you have, you win big.
BEST ANSWER: This question is your opportunity to hit the ball out of the park, thanks to the in-depth research you should do before any interview.
Best sources for researching your target company: annual reports, the corporate newsletter, contacts you know at the company or its suppliers, advertisements, articles about the company in the trade press.
Question 12 What are your career options right now?
TRAPS: The interviewer is trying to find out, “How desperate are you?”
BEST ANSWER: Prepare for this question by thinking of how you can position yourself as a desired commodity. If you are still working, describe the possibilities at your present firm and why, though you’re greatly appreciated there, you’re looking for something more (challenge, money, responsibility, etc.). Also mention that you’re seriously exploring opportunities with one or two other firms.
If you’re not working, you can talk about other employment possibilities you’re actually exploring. But do this with a light touch, speaking only in general terms. You don’t want to seem manipulative or coy.
Question 13 Why have you been out of work so long?
TRAPS: A tough question if you’ve been on the beach a long time. You don’t want to seem like damaged goods.
BEST ANSWER: You want to emphasize factors which have prolonged your job search by your own choice.
Example: “After my job was terminated, I made a conscious decision not to jump on the first opportunities to come along. In my life, I’ve found out that you can always turn a negative into a positive IF you try hard enough. This is what I determined to do. I decided to take whatever time I needed to think through what I do best, what I most want to do, where I’d like to do it…and then identify those companies that could offer such an opportunity.”
“Also, in all honesty, you have to factor in the recession (consolidation, stabilization, etc.) in the (banking, financial services, manufacturing, advertising, etc.) industry.”
“So between my being selective and the companies in our industry downsizing, the process has taken time. But in the end, I’m convinced that when I do find the right match, all that careful evaluation from both sides of the desk will have been well worthwhile for both the company that hires me and myself.
Question 14 Tell me honestly about the strong points and weak points of your boss (company, management team, etc.)…
TRAPS: Skillfull interviewers sometimes make it almost irresistible to open up and air a little dirty laundry from your previous position. DON’T
BEST ANSWER: Remember the rule: Never be negative. Stress only the good points, no matter how charmingly you’re invited to be critical.
Your interviewer doesn’t care a whit about your previous boss. He wants to find out how loyal and positive you are, and whether you’ll criticize him behind his back if pressed to do so by someone in this own company. This question is your opportunity to demonstrate your loyalty to those you work with.
Question 15 What good books have you read lately?
TRAPS: As in all matters of your interview, never fake familiarity you don’t have. Yet you don’t want to seem like a dullard who hasn’t read a book since Tom Sawyer.
BEST ANSWER: Unless you’re up for a position in academia or as book critic for The New York Times, you’re not expected to be a literary lion. But it wouldn’t hurt to have read a handful of the most recent and influential books in your profession and on management.
Consider it part of the work of your job search to read up on a few of these leading books. But make sure they are quality books that reflect favorably upon you, nothing that could even remotely be considered superficial. Finally, add a recently published bestselling work of fiction by a world-class author and you’ll pass this question with flying colors.
Question 16 Tell me about a situation when your work was criticized.
TRAPS: This is a tough question because it’s a more clever and subtle way to get you to admit to a weakness. You can’t dodge it by pretending you’ve never been criticized. Everybody has been. Yet it can be quite damaging to start admitting potential faults and failures that you’d just as soon leave buried.
This question is also intended to probe how well you accept criticism and direction.
BEST ANSWERS: Begin by emphasizing the extremely positive feedback you’ve gotten throughout your career and (if it’s true) that your performance reviews have been uniformly excellent.
Of course, no one is perfect and you always welcome suggestions on how to improve your performance. Then, give an example of a not-too-damaging learning experience from early in your career and relate the ways this lesson has since helped you. This demonstrates that you learned from the experience and the lesson is now one of the strongest breastplates in your suit of armor.
If you are pressed for a criticism from a recent position, choose something fairly trivial that in no way is essential to your successful performance. Add that you’ve learned from this, too, and over the past several years/months, it’s no longer an area of concern because you now make it a regular practice to…etc.
Another way to answer this question would be to describe your intention to broaden your master of an area of growing importance in your field. For example, this might be a computer program you’ve been meaning to sit down and learn… a new management technique you’ve read about…or perhaps attending a seminar on some cutting-edge branch of your profession.
Again, the key is to focus on something not essential to your brilliant performance but which adds yet another dimension to your already impressive knowledge base.
Question 17 What are your outside interests?
TRAPS: You want to be a well-rounded, not a drone. But your potential employer would be even more turned off if he suspects that your heavy extracurricular load will interfere with your commitment to your work duties.
BEST ANSWERS: Try to gauge how this company’s culture would look upon your favorite outside activities and be guided accordingly.
You can also use this question to shatter any stereotypes that could limit your chances. If you’re over 50, for example, describe your activities that demonstrate physical stamina. If you’re young, mention an activity that connotes wisdom and institutional trust, such as serving on the board of a popular charity.
But above all, remember that your employer is hiring your for what you can do for him, not your family, yourself or outside organizations, no matter how admirable those activities may be.
Question 18 The “Fatal Flaw” question
TRAPS: If an interviewer has read your resume carefully, he may try to zero in on a “fatal flaw” of your candidacy, perhaps that you don’t have a college degree…you’ve been out of the job market for some time…you never earned your CPA, etc.
A fatal flaw question can be deadly, but usually only if you respond by being overly defensive.
BEST ANSWERS: As every master salesperson knows, you will encounter objections (whether stated or merely thought) in every sale. They’re part and parcel of the buyer’s anxiety. The key is not to exacerbate the buyer’s anxiety but diminish it. Here’s how…
Whenever you come up against a fatal flaw question:
1. Be completely honest, open and straightforward about admitting the shortcoming. (Showing you have nothing to hide diminishes the buyer’s anxiety.)
2. Do not apologize or try to explain it away. You know that this supposed flaw is nothing to be concerned about, and this is the attitude you want your interviewer to adopt as well.
3. Add that as desirable as such a qualification might be, its lack has made you work all the harder throughout your career and has not prevented you from compiling an outstanding tack record of achievements. You might even give examples of how, through a relentless commitment to excellence, you have consistently outperformed those who do have this qualification.
Of course, the ultimate way to handle “fatal flaw” questions is to prevent them from arising in the first place. You will do that by following the master strategy described in Question 1, i.e., uncovering the employers needs and them matching your qualifications to those needs.
Once you’ve gotten the employer to start talking about his most urgently-felt wants and goals for the position, and then help him see in step-by-step fashion how perfectly your background and achievements match up with those needs, you’re going to have one very enthusiastic interviewer on your hands, one who is no longer looking for “fatal flaws”.
Question 19 How do you feel about reporting to a younger person (minority, woman, etc)?
TRAPS: It’s a shame that some interviewers feel the need to ask this question, but many understand the reality that prejudices still exist among some job candidates, and it’s better to try to flush them out beforehand.
The trap here is that in today’s politically sensitized environment, even a well-intentioned answer can result in planting your foot neatly in your mouth. Avoid anything which smacks of a patronizing or an insensitive attitude, such as “I think they make terrific bosses” or “Hey, some of my best friends are…”
Of course, since almost anyone with an IQ above room temperature will at least try to steadfastly affirm the right answer here, your interviewer will be judging your sincerity most of all. “Do you really feel that way?” is what he or she will be wondering.
So you must make your answer believable and not just automatic. If the firm is wise enough to have promoted peopled on the basis of ability alone, they’re likely quite proud of it, and prefer to hire others who will wholeheartedly share their strong sense of fair play.
BEST ANSWER: You greatly admire a company that hires and promotes on merit alone and you couldn’t agree more with that philosophy. The age (gender, race, etc.) of the person you report to would certainly make no difference to you.
Whoever has that position has obviously earned it and knows their job well. Both the person and the position are fully deserving of respect. You believe that all people in a company, from the receptionist to the Chairman, work best when their abilities, efforts and feelings are respected and rewarded fairly, and that includes you. That’s the best type of work environment you can hope to find.
Question 20 On confidential matters…
TRAPS: When an interviewer presses you to reveal confidential information about a present or former employer, you may feel it’s a no-win situation. If you cooperate, you could be judged untrustworthy. If you don’t, you may irritate the interviewer and seem obstinate, uncooperative or overly suspicious.
BEST ANSWER: Your interviewer may press you for this information for two reasons.
First, many companies use interviews to research the competition. It’s a perfect set-up. Here in their own lair, is an insider from the enemy camp who can reveal prized information on the competition’s plans, research, financial condition, etc.
Second, the company may be testing your integrity to see if you can be cajoled or bullied into revealing confidential data.
What to do? The answer here is easy. Never reveal anything truly confidential about a present or former employer. By all means, explain your reticence diplomatically. For example, “I certainly want to be as open as I can about that. But I also wish to respect the rights of those who have trusted me with their most sensitive information, just as you would hope to be able to trust any of your key people when talking with a competitor…”
And certainly you can allude to your finest achievements in specific ways that don’t reveal the combination to the company safe.
But be guided by the golden rule. If you were the owner of your present company, would you feel it ethically wrong for the information to be given to your competitors? If so, steadfastly refuse to reveal it.
Remember that this question pits your desire to be cooperative against your integrity. Faced with any such choice, always choose integrity. It is a far more valuable commodity than whatever information the company may pry from you. Moreover, once you surrender the information, your stock goes down. They will surely lose respect for you.
One President we know always presses candidates unmercifully for confidential information. If he doesn’t get it, he grows visibly annoyed, relentlessly inquisitive, It’s all an act. He couldn’t care less about the information. This is his way of testing the candidate’s moral fiber. Only those who hold fast are hired.
Question 21 Would you lie for the company?
TRAPS: This another question that pits two values against one another, in this case loyalty against integrity.
BEST ANSWER: Try to avoid choosing between two values, giving a positive statement which covers all bases instead.
Example: “I would never do anything to hurt the company..”
If aggressively pressed to choose between two competing values, always choose personal integrity. It is the most prized of all values.
Question 22 Looking back, what would you do differently in your life?
TRAPS: This question is usually asked to uncover any life-influencing mistakes, regrets, disappointments or problems that may continue to affect your personality and performance.
You do not want to give the interviewer anything negative to remember you by, such as some great personal or career disappointment, even long ago, that you wish could have been avoided.
Nor do you wish to give any answer which may hint that your whole heart and soul will not be in your work.
BEST ANSWER: Indicate that you are a happy, fulfilled, optimistic person and that, in general, you wouldn’t change a thing.
Example: “It’s been a good life, rich in learning and experience, and the best it yet to come. Every experience in life is a lesson it its own way. I wouldn’t change a thing.”
Question 23 Could you have done better in your last job?
TRAPS: This is no time for true confessions of major or even minor problems.
BEST ANSWER: Again never be negative.
Example: “I suppose with the benefit of hindsight you can always find things to do better, of course, but off the top of my head, I can’t think of anything of major consequence.”
(If more explanation seems necessary)
Describer a situation that didn’t suffer because of you but from external conditions beyond your control.
For example, describe the disappointment you felt with a test campaign, new product launch, merger, etc., which looked promising at first, but led to underwhelming results. “I wish we could have known at the start what we later found out (about the economy turning, the marketplace changing, etc.), but since we couldn’t, we just had to go for it. And we did learn from it…”
Question 24 Can you work under pressure?
TRAPS: An easy question, but you want to make your answer believable.
BEST ANSWER: Absolutely…(then prove it with a vivid example or two of a goal or project accomplished under severe pressure.)
Question 25 What makes you angry?
TRAPS: You don’t want to come across either as a hothead or a wimp.
BEST ANSWER: Give an answer that’s suited to both your personality and the management style of the firm. Here, the homework you’ve done about the company and its style can help in your choice of words.
Examples: If you are a reserved person and/or the corporate culture is coolly professional:
“I’m an even-tempered and positive person by nature, and I believe this helps me a great deal in keeping my department running smoothly, harmoniously and with a genuine esprit de corps. I believe in communicating clearly what’s expected, getting people’s commitment to those goals, and then following up continuously to check progress.”
“If anyone or anything is going off track, I want to know about it early. If, after that kind of open communication and follow up, someone isn’t getting the job done, I’ll want to know why. If there’s no good reason, then I’ll get impatient and angry…and take appropriate steps from there. But if you hire good people, motivate them to strive for excellence and then follow up constantly, it almost never gets to that state.”
If you are feisty by nature and/or the position calls for a tough straw boss.
“You know what makes me angry? People who (the fill in the blanks with the most objectionable traits for this type of position)…people who don’t pull their own weight, who are negative, people who lie…etc.”
Question 26 Why aren’t you earning more money at this stage of your career?
TRAPS: You don’t want to give the impression that money is not important to you, yet you want to explain why your salary may be a little below industry standards.
BEST ANSWER: You like to make money, but other factors are even more important.
Example: “Making money is very important to me, and one reason I’m here is because I’m looking to make more. Throughout my career, what’s been even more important to me is doing work I really like to do at the kind of company I like and respect.
(Then be prepared to be specific about what your ideal position and company would be like, matching them as closely as possible to the opportunity at hand.
Question 27 Who has inspired you in your life and why?
TRAPS: The two traps here are unpreparedness and irrelevance. If you grope for an answer, it seems you’ve never been inspired. If you ramble about your high school basketball coach, you’ve wasted an opportunity to present qualities of great value to the company.
BEST ANSWER: Have a few heroes in mind, from your mental “Board of Directors” – Leaders in your industry, from history or anyone else who has been your mentor.
Be prepared to give examples of how their words, actions or teachings have helped inspire your achievements. As always, prepare an answer which highlights qualities that would be highly valuable in the position you are seeking.
Question 28 What was the toughest decision you ever had to make?
TRAPS: Giving an unprepared or irrelevant answer.
BEST ANSWER: Be prepared with a good example, explaining why the decision was difficult…the process you followed in reaching it…the courageous or effective way you carried it out…and the beneficial results.
Question 29 Tell me about the most boring job you’ve ever had.
TRAPS: You give a very memorable description of a very boring job. Result? You become associated with this boring job in the interviewer’s mind.
BEST ANSWER: You have never allowed yourself to grow bored with a job and you can’t understand it when others let themselves fall into that rut.
Example: “Perhaps I’ve been fortunate, but that I’ve never found myself bored with any job I have ever held. I’ve always enjoyed hard work. As with actors who feel there are no small parts, I also believe that in every company or department there are exciting challenges and intriguing problems crying out for energetic and enthusiastic solutions. If you’re bored, it’s probably because you’re not challenging yourself to tackle those problems right under your nose.”
Question 30 Have you been absent from work more than a few days in any previous position?
TRAPS: If you’ve had a problem, you can’t lie. You could easily be found out. Yet admitting an attendance problem could raise many flags.
BEST ANSWER: If you have had no problem, emphasize your excellent and consistent attendance record throughout your career.
Also describe how important you believe such consistent attendance is for a key executive…why it’s up to you to set an example of dedication…and why there’s just no substitute for being there with your people to keep the operation running smoothly, answer questions and handle problems and crises as they arise.
If you do have a past attendance problem, you want to minimize it, making it clear that it was an exceptional circumstance and that it’s cause has been corrected.
To do this, give the same answer as above but preface it with something like, “Other that being out last year (or whenever) because of (your reason, which is now in the past), I have never had a problem and have enjoyed an excellent attendance record throughout my career. Furthermore, I believe, consistent attendance is important because…” (Pick up the rest of the answer as outlined above.).
Question 31 What changes would you make if you came on board?
TRAPS: Watch out! This question can derail your candidacy faster than a bomb on the tracks – and just as you are about to be hired.
Reason: No matter how bright you are, you cannot know the right actions to take in a position before you settle in and get to know the operation’s strengths, weaknesses key people, financial condition, methods of operation, etc. If you lunge at this temptingly baited question, you will probably be seen as someone who shoots from the hip.
Moreover, no matter how comfortable you may feel with your interviewer, you are still an outsider. No one, including your interviewer, likes to think that a know-it-all outsider is going to come in, turn the place upside down and with sweeping, grand gestures, promptly demonstrate what jerks everybody’s been for years.
BEST ANSWER: You, of course, will want to take a good hard look at everything the company is doing before making any recommendations.
Example: “Well, I wouldn’t be a very good doctor if I gave my diagnosis before the examination. Should you hire me, as I hope you will, I’d want to take a good hard look at everything you’re doing and understand why it’s being done that way. I’d like to have in-depth meetings with you and the other key people to get a deeper grasp of what you feel you’re doing right and what could be improved.
“From what you’ve told me so far, the areas of greatest concern to you are…” (name them. Then do two things. First, ask if these are in fact his major concerns. If so then reaffirm how your experience in meeting similar needs elsewhere might prove very helpful).
Question 32 I’m concerned that you don’t have as much experience as we’d like in…
TRAPS: This could be a make-or-break question. The interviewer mostly likes what he sees, but has doubts over one key area. If you can assure him on this point, the job may be yours.
BEST ANSWER: This question is related to “The Fatal Flaw” (Question 18), but here the concern is not that you are totally missing some qualifications, such as CPA certification, but rather that your experience is light in one area.
Before going into any interview, try to identify the weakest aspects of your candidacy from this company’s point of view. Then prepare the best answer you possible can to shore up your defenses.
To get past this question with flying colors, you are going to rely on your master strategy of uncovering the employer’s greatest wants and needs and then matching them with your strengths. Since you already know how to do this from Question 1, you are in a much stronger position.
More specifically, when the interviewer poses as objection like this, you should…
1. Agree on the importance of this qualification.
2. Explain that your strength may be indeed be greater than your resume indicates because…
3. When this strength is added to your other strengths, it’s really your combination of qualifications that’s most important.
Then review the areas of your greatest strengths that match up most favorably with the company’s most urgently-felt wants and needs.
This is powerful way to handle this question for two reasons. First, you’re giving your interviewer more ammunition in the area of his concern. But more importantly, you’re shifting his focus away from this one, isolated area and putting it on the unique combination of strengths you offer, strengths which tie in perfectly with his greatest wants.
Question 33 How do you feel about working nights and weekends?
TRAPS: Blurt out “no way, Jose” and you can kiss the job offer goodbye. But what if you have a family and want to work a reasonably normal schedule? Is there a way to get both the job and the schedule you want?
BEST ANSWER: First, if you’re a confirmed workaholic, this question is a softball lob. Whack it out of the park on the first swing by saying this kind of schedule is just your style. Add that your family understands it. Indeed, they’re happy for you, as they know you get your greatest satisfaction from your work.
If however, you prefer a more balanced lifestyle, answer this question with another: “What’s the norm for your best people here?”
If the hours still sound unrealistic for you, ask, “Do you have any top people who perform exceptionally for you, but who also have families and like to get home in time to see them at night?” Chances are this company does, and this associates you with this other “top-performers-who-leave-not-later-than-six” group.
Depending on the answer, be honest about how you would fit into the picture. If all those extra hours make you uncomfortable, say so, but phrase your response positively.
Example: “I love my work and do it exceptionally well. I think the results speak for themselves, especially in …(mention your two or three qualifications of greater interest to the employer. Remember, this is what he wants most, not a workaholic with weak credentials). Not only would I bring these qualities, but I’ve built my whole career on working not just hard, but smart. I think you’ll find me one of the most productive people here.
I do have a family who likes to see me after work and on weekends. They add balance and richness to my life, which in turn helps me be happy and productive at work. If I could handle some of the extra work at home in the evenings or on weekends, that would be ideal. You’d be getting a person of exceptional productivity who meets your needs with strong credentials. And I’d be able to handle some of the heavy workload at home where I can be under the same roof as my family. Everybody would win.”
Question 34 Are you willing to relocate or travel?
TRAPS: Answer with a flat “no” and you may slam the door shut on this opportunity. But what if you’d really prefer not to relocate or travel, yet wouldn’t want to lose the job offer over it?
BEST ANSWER: First find out where you may have to relocate and how much travel may be involved. Then respond to the question.
If there’s no problem, say so enthusiastically.
If you do have a reservation, there are two schools of thought on how to handle it.
One advises you to keep your options open and your reservations to yourself in the early going, by saying, “no problem”. You strategy here is to get the best offer you can, then make a judgment whether it’s worth it to you to relocate or travel.
Also, by the time the offer comes through, you may have other offers and can make a more informed decision. Why kill of this opportunity before it has chance to blossom into something really special? And if you’re a little more desperate three months from now, you might wish you hadn’t slammed the door on relocating or traveling.
The second way to handle this question is to voice a reservation, but assert that you’d be open to relocating (or traveling) for the right opportunity.
The answering strategy you choose depends on how eager you are for the job. If you want to take no chances, choose the first approach.
If you want to play a little harder-to-get in hopes of generating a more enticing offer, choose the second.
Question 35 Do you have the stomach to fire people? Have you had experience firing many people?
TRAPS: This “innocent” question could be a trap door which sends you down a chute and lands you in a heap of dust outside the front door. Why? Because its real intent is not just to see if you’ve got the stomach to fire, but also to uncover poor judgment in hiring which has caused you to fire so many. Also, if you fire so often, you could be a tyrant.
So don’t rise to the bait by boasting how many you’ve fired, unless you’ve prepared to explain why it was beyond your control, and not the result of your poor hiring procedures or foul temperament.
BEST ANSWER: Describe the rational and sensible management process you follow in both hiring and firing.
Example: “My whole management approach is to hire the best people I can find, train them thoroughly and well, get them excited and proud to be part of our team, and then work with them to achieve our goals together. If you do all of that right, especially hiring the right people, I’ve found you don’t have to fire very often.
“So with me, firing is a last resort. But when it’s got to be done, it’s got to be done, and the faster and cleaner, the better. A poor employee can wreak terrible damage in undermining the morale of an entire team of good people. When there’s no other way, I’ve found it’s better for all concerned to act decisively in getting rid of offenders who won’t change their ways.”
Question 36 Why have you had so many jobs?
TRAPS: Your interviewer fears you may leave this position quickly, as you have others. He’s concerned you may be unstable, or a “problem person” who can’t get along with others.
BEST ANSWER: First, before you even get to the interview stage, you should try to minimize your image as job hopper. If there are several entries on your resume of less than one year, consider eliminating the less important ones. Perhaps you can specify the time you spent at previous positions in rounded years not in months and years.
Example: Instead of showing three positions this way:
6/1982 – 3/1983, Position A;
4/1983 – 12/1983, Position B;
1/1984 – 8/1987, Position C;
…it would be better to show simply:
1982 – 1983, Position A;
1984 – 1987 Position C.
In other words, you would drop Position B altogether. Notice what a difference this makes in reducing your image as a job hopper.
Once in front of the interviewer and this question comes up, you must try to reassure him. Describe each position as part of an overall pattern of growth and career destination.
Be careful not to blame other people for your frequent changes. But you can and should attribute certain changes to conditions beyond your control.
Example: Thanks to an upcoming merger, you wanted to avoid an ensuing bloodbath, so you made a good, upward career move before your department came under the axe of the new owners.
If possible, also show that your job changes were more frequent in your younger days, while you were establishing yourself, rounding out your skills and looking for the right career path. At this stage in your career, you’re certainly much more interested in the best long-term opportunity.
You might also cite the job(s) where you stayed the longest and describe that this type of situation is what you’re looking for now.
Question 37 What do you see as the proper role/mission of…
…a good (job title you’re seeking);
…a good manager;
…an executive in serving the community;
…a leading company in our industry; etc.
TRAPS: These and other “proper role” questions are designed to test your understanding of your place in the bigger picture of your department, company, community and profession….as well as the proper role each of these entities should play in its bigger picture.
The question is most frequently asked by the most thoughtful individuals and companies…or by those concerned that you’re coming from a place with a radically different corporate culture (such as from a big government bureaucracy to an aggressive small company).
The most frequent mistake executives make in answering is simply not being prepared (seeming as if they’ve never giving any of this a though.)…or in phrasing an answer best suited to their prior organization’s culture instead of the hiring company’s.
BEST ANSWER: Think of the most essential ingredients of success for each category above – your job title, your role as manager, your firm’s role, etc.
Identify at least three but no more than six qualities you feel are most important to success in each role. Then commit your response to memory.
Here, again, the more information you’ve already drawn out about the greatest wants and needs of the interviewer, and the more homework you’ve done to identify the culture of the firm, the more on-target your answer will be.
Question 38 What would you say to your boss if he’s crazy about an idea, but you think it stinks?
TRAPS: This is another question that pits two values, in this case loyalty and honesty, against one another.
BEST ANSWER: Remember the rule stated earlier: In any conflict between values, always choose integrity.
Example: I believe that when evaluating anything, it’s important to emphasize the positive. What do I like about this idea?”
“Then, if you have reservations, I certainly want to point them out, as specifically, objectively and factually as I can.”
“After all, the most important thing I owe my boss is honesty. If he can’t count on me for that, then everything else I may do or say could be questionable in his eyes.”
“But I also want to express my thoughts in a constructive way. So my goal in this case would be to see if my boss and I could make his idea even stronger and more appealing, so that it effectively overcomes any initial reservation I or others may have about it.”
“Of course, if he overrules me and says, ‘no, let’s do it my way,’ then I owe him my full and enthusiastic support to make it work as best it can.”
Question 39 How could you have improved your career progress?
TRAPS: This is another variation on the question, “If you could, how would you live your life over?” Remember, you’re not going to fall for any such invitations to rewrite person history. You can’t win if you do.
BEST ANSWER: You’re generally quite happy with your career progress. Maybe, if you had known something earlier in life (impossible to know at the time, such as the booming growth in a branch in your industry…or the corporate downsizing that would phase out your last job), you might have moved in a certain direction sooner.
But all things considered, you take responsibility for where you are, how you’ve gotten there, where you are going…and you harbor no regrets.
Question 40 What would you do if a fellow executive on your own corporate level wasn’t pulling his/her weight…and this was hurting your department?
TRAPS: This question and other hypothetical ones test your sense of human relations and how you might handle office politics.
BEST ANSWER: Try to gauge the political style of the firm and be guided accordingly. In general, fall back on universal principles of effective human relations – which in the end, embody the way you would like to be treated in a similar circumstance.
Example: “Good human relations would call for me to go directly to the person and explain the situation, to try to enlist his help in a constructive, positive solution. If I sensed resistance, I would be as persuasive as I know how to explain the benefits we can all gain from working together, and the problems we, the company and our customers will experience if we don’t.”
POSSIBLE FOLLOW-UP QUESTION: And what would you do if he still did not change his ways?
ANSWER: “One thing I wouldn’t do is let the problem slide, because it would only get worse and overlooking it would set a bad precedent. I would try again and again and again, in whatever way I could, to solve the problem, involving wider and wider circles of people, both above and below the offending executive and including my own boss if necessary, so that everyone involved can see the rewards for teamwork and the drawbacks of non-cooperation.”
“I might add that I’ve never yet come across a situation that couldn’t be resolved by harnessing others in a determined, constructive effort.”
Question 41 You’ve been with your firm a long time. Won’t it be hard switching to a new company?
TRAPS: Your interviewer is worried that this old dog will find it hard to learn new tricks.
BEST ANSWER: To overcome this objection, you must point to the many ways you have grown and adapted to changing conditions at your present firm. It has not been a static situation. Highlight the different responsibilities you’ve held, the wide array of new situations you’ve faced and conquered.
As a result, you’ve learned to adapt quickly to whatever is thrown at you, and you thrive on the stimulation of new challenges.
To further assure the interviewer, describe the similarities between the new position and your prior one. Explain that you should be quite comfortable working there, since their needs and your skills make a perfect match.
Question 42 May I contact your present employer for a reference?
TRAPS: If you’re trying to keep your job search private, this is the last thing you want. But if you don’t cooperate, won’t you seem as if you’re trying to hide something?
BEST ANSWER: Express your concern that you’d like to keep your job search private, but that in time, it will be perfectly okay.
Example: “My present employer is not aware of my job search and, for obvious reasons; I’d prefer to keep it that way. I’d be most appreciative if we kept our discussion confidential right now. Of course, when we both agree the time is right, then by all means you should contact them. I’m very proud of my record there.
Question 43 Give me an example of your creativity (analytical skill…managing ability, etc.)
TRAPS: The worst offense here is simply being unprepared. Your hesitation may seem as if you’re having a hard time remembering the last time you were creative, analytical, etc.
BEST ANSWER: Remember from Question 2 that you should commit to memory a list of your greatest and most recent achievements, ever ready on the tip of your tongue.
If you have such a list, it’s easy to present any of your achievements in light of the quality the interviewer is asking about. For example, the smashing success you orchestrated at last year’s trade show could be used as an example of creativity, or analytical ability, or your ability to manage.
Question 44 Where could you use some improvement?
TRAPS: Another tricky way to get you to admit weaknesses. Don’t fall for it.
BEST ANSWER: Keep this answer, like all your answers, positive. A good way to answer this question is to identify a cutting-edge branch of your profession (one that’s not essential to your employer’s needs) as an area you’re very excited about and want to explore more fully over the next six months.
Question 45 What do you worry about?
TRAPS: Admit to worrying and you could sound like a loser. Saying you never worry doesn’t sound credible.
BEST ANSWER: Redefine the word ‘worry’ so that it does not reflect negatively on you.
Example: “I wouldn’t call it worry, but I am a strongly goal-oriented person. So I keep turning over in my mind anything that seems to be keeping me from achieving those goals, until I find a solution. That’s part of my tenacity, I suppose.”
Question 46 How many hours a week do you normally work?
TRAPS: You don’t want to give a specific number. Make it to low, and you may not measure up. Too high, and you’ll forever feel guilty about sneaking out the door at 5:15.
BEST ANSWER: If you are in fact a workaholic and you sense this company would like that: Say you are a confirmed workaholic, that you often work nights and weekends. Your family accepts this because it makes you fulfilled.
If you are not a workaholic: Say you have always worked hard and put in long hours. It goes with the territory. It one sense, it’s hard to keep track of the hours because your work is a labor of love, you enjoy nothing more than solving problems. So you’re almost always thinking about your work, including times when you’re home, while shaving in the morning, while commuting, etc.
Question 47 What’s the most difficult part of being a (job title)?
TRAPS: Unless you phrase your answer properly, your interviewer may conclude that whatever you identify as “difficult” is where you are weak.
BEST ANSWER: First, redefine “difficult” to be “challenging” which is more positive. Then, identify an area everyone in your profession considers challenging and in which you excel. Describe the process you follow that enables you to get splendid results…and be specific about those results.
Example: “I think every sales manager finds it challenging to motivate the troops in a recession. But that’s probably the strongest test of a top sales manager. I feel this is one area where I excel.”
“When I see the first sign that sales may slip or that sales force motivation is flagging because of a downturn in the economy, here’s the plan I put into action immediately…” (followed by a description of each step in the process…and most importantly, the exceptional results you’ve achieved.).
Question 48 The “Hypothetical Problem”
TRAPS: Sometimes an interviewer will describe a difficult situation and ask, “How would you handle this?” Since it is virtually impossible to have all the facts in front of you from such a short presentation, don’t fall into the trap of trying to solve this problem and giving your verdict on the spot. It will make your decision-making process seem woefully inadequate.
BEST ANSWER: Instead, describe the rational, methodical process you would follow in analyzing this problem, who you would consult with, generating possible solutions, choosing the best course of action, and monitoring the results.
Remember, in all such, “What would you do?” questions, always describe your process or working methods, and you’ll never go wrong.
Question 49 What was the toughest challenge you’ve ever faced?
TRAPS: Being unprepared or citing an example from so early in your life that it doesn’t score many points for you at this stage of your career.
BEST ANSWER: This is an easy question if you’re prepared. Have a recent example ready that demonstrates either:
1. A quality most important to the job at hand; or
2. A quality that is always in demand, such as leadership, initiative, managerial skill, persuasiveness, courage, persistence, intelligence, etc.
Question 50 Have you consider starting your own business?
TRAPS: If you say “yes” and elaborate enthusiastically, you could be perceived as a loose cannon in a larger company, too entrepreneurial to make a good team player…or someone who had to settle for the corporate life because you couldn’t make a go of your own business.
Also too much enthusiasm in answering “yes” could rouse the paranoia of a small company indicating that you may plan to go out on your own soon, perhaps taking some key accounts or trade secrets with you.
On the other hand, if you answer “no, never” you could be perceived as a security-minded drone who never dreamed a big dream.
BEST ANSWER: Again it’s best to:
1. Gauge this company’s corporate culture before answering and…
2. Be honest (which doesn’t mean you have to vividly share your fantasy of the franchise or bed-and-breakfast you someday plan to open).
In general, if the corporate culture is that of a large, formal, military-style structure, minimize any indication that you’d love to have your own business. You might say, “Oh, I may have given it a thought once or twice, but my whole career has been in larger organizations. That’s where I have excelled and where I want to be.”
If the corporate culture is closer to the free-wheeling, everybody’s-a-deal-maker variety, then emphasize that in a firm like this, you can virtually get the best of all worlds, the excitement of seeing your own ideas and plans take shape…combined with the resources and stability of a well-established organization. Sounds like the perfect environment to you.
In any case, no matter what the corporate culture, be sure to indicate that any desires about running your own show are part of your past, not your present or future.
The last thing you want to project is an image of either a dreamer who failed and is now settling for the corporate cocoon…or the restless maverick who will fly out the door with key accounts, contacts and trade secrets under his arms just as soon as his bankroll has gotten rebuilt.
Always remember: Match what you want with what the position offers. The more information you’ve uncovered about the position, the more believable you can make your case.
Question 51 What are your goals?
TRAPS: Not having any…or having only vague generalities, not highly specific goals.
BEST ANSWER: Many executives in a position to hire you are strong believers in goal-setting. (It’s one of the reason they’ve achieved so much). They like to hire in kind.
If you’re vague about your career and personal goals, it could be a big turnoff to may people you will encounter in your job search.
Be ready to discuss your goals for each major area of your life: career, personal development and learning, family, physical (health), community service and (if your interviewer is clearly a religious person) you could briefly and generally allude to your spiritual goals (showing you are a well-rounded individual with your values in the right order).
Be prepared to describe each goal in terms of specific milestones you wish to accomplish along the way, time periods you’re allotting for accomplishment, why the goal is important to you, and the specific steps you’re taking to bring it about. But do this concisely, as you never want to talk more than two minutes straight before letting your interviewer back into the conversation.
Question 52 What do you for when you hire people?
TRAPS: Being unprepared for the question.
BEST ANSWER: Speak your own thoughts here, but for the best answer weave them around the three most important qualifications for any position.
1. Can the person do the work (qualifications)?
2. Will the person do the work (motivation)?
3. Will the person fit in (“our kind of team player”)?
Question 53 Sell me this stapler…(this pencil…this clock…or some other object on interviewer’s desk).
TRAPS: Some interviewers, especially business owners and hard-changing executives in marketing-driven companies, feel that good salesmanship is essential for any key position and ask for an instant demonstration of your skill. Be ready.
BEST ANSWER: Of course, you already know the most important secret of all great salesmanship – “find out what people want, then show them how to get it.”
If your interviewer picks up his stapler and asks, “sell this to me,” you are going to demonstrate this proven master principle. Here’s how:
“Well, a good salesman must know both his product and his prospect before he sells anything. If I were selling this, I’d first get to know everything I could about it, all its features and benefits.”
“Then, if my goal were to sell it you, I would do some research on how you might use a fine stapler like this. The best way to do that is by asking some questions. May I ask you a few questions?”
Then ask a few questions such as, “Just out of curiosity, if you didn’t already have a stapler like this, why would you want one? And in addition to that? Any other reason? Anything else?”
“And would you want such a stapler to be reliable?...Hold a good supply of staples?” (Ask more questions that point to the features this stapler has.)
Once you’ve asked these questions, make your presentation citing all the features and benefits of this stapler and why it’s exactly what the interviewer just told you he’s looking for.
Then close with, “Just out of curiosity, what would you consider a reasonable price for a quality stapler like this…a stapler you could have right now and would (then repeat all the problems the stapler would solve for him)? Whatever he says, (unless it’s zero), say, “Okay, we’ve got a deal.”
NOTE: If your interviewer tests you by fighting every step of the way, denying that he even wants such an item, don’t fight him. Take the product away from him by saying, “Mr. Prospect, I’m delighted you’ve told me right upfront that there’s no way you’d ever want this stapler. As you well know, the first rule of the most productive salespeople in any field is to meet the needs of people who really need and want our products, and it just wastes everyone’s time if we try to force it on those who don’t. And I certainly wouldn’t want to waste your time. But we sell many items. Is there any product on this desk you would very much like to own…just one item?” When he points something out, repeat the process above. If he knows anything about selling, he may give you a standing ovation.
Question 54 “The Salary Question” – How much money do you want?
TRAPS: May also be phrases as, “What salary are you worth?”…or, “How much are you making now?” This is your most important negotiation. Handle it wrong and you can blow the job offer or go to work at far less than you might have gotten.
BEST ANSWER: For maximum salary negotiating power, remember these five guidelines:
1. Never bring up salary. Let the interviewer do it first. Good salespeople sell their products thoroughly before talking price. So should you. Make the interviewer want you first, and your bargaining position will be much stronger.
2. If your interviewer raises the salary question too early, before you’ve had a chance to create desire for your qualifications, postpone the question, saying something like, “Money is important to me, but is not my main concern. Opportunity and growth are far more important. What I’d rather do, if you don’t mind, is explore if I’m right for the position, and then talk about money. Would that be okay?”
3. The #1 rule of any negotiation is: the side with more information wins. After you’ve done a thorough job of selling the interviewer and it’s time to talk salary, the secret is to get the employer talking about what he’s willing to pay before you reveal what you’re willing to accept. So, when asked about salary, respond by asking, “I’m sure the company has already established a salary range for this position. Could you tell me what that is?” Or, “I want an income commensurate with my ability and qualifications. I trust you’ll be fair with me. What does the position pay?” Or, more simply, “What does this position pay?”
4. Know beforehand what you’d accept. To know what’s reasonable, research the job market and this position for any relevant salary information. Remember that most executives look for a 20-25%$ pay boost when they switch jobs. If you’re grossly underpaid, you may want more.
5. Never lie about what you currently make, but feel free to include the estimated cost of all your fringes, which could well tack on 25-50% more to your present “cash-only” salary.
Question 55 The Illegal Question
TRAPS: Illegal questions include any regarding your age…number and ages of your children or other dependents…marital status…maiden name…religion…political affiliation…ancestry…national origin…birthplace…naturalization of your parents, spouse or children…diseases…disabilities…clubs…or spouse’s occupation…unless any of the above are directly related to your performance of the job. You can’t even be asked about arrests, though you can be asked about convictions.
BEST ANSWER: Under the ever-present threat of lawsuits, most interviewers are well aware of these taboos. Yet you may encounter, usually on a second or third interview, a senior executive who doesn’t interview much and forgets he can’t ask such questions.
You can handle an illegal question in several ways. First, you can assert your legal right not to answer. But this will frighten or embarrass your interviewer and destroy any rapport you had.
Second, you could swallow your concerns over privacy and answer the question straight forwardly if you feel the answer could help you. For example, your interviewer, a devout Baptist, recognizes you from church and mentions it. Here, you could gain by talking about your church.
Third, if you don’t want your privacy invaded, you can diplomatically answer the concern behind the question without answering the question itself.
Example: If you are over 50 and are asked, “How old are you?” you can answer with a friendly, smiling question of your own on whether there’s a concern that your age my affect your performance. Follow this up by reassuring the interviewer that there’s nothing in this job you can’t do and, in fact, your age and experience are the most important advantages you offer the employer for the following reasons…
Another example: If asked, “Do you plan to have children?” you could answer, “I am wholeheartedly dedicated to my career“, perhaps adding, “I have no plans regarding children.” (You needn’t fear you’ve pledged eternal childlessness. You have every right to change your plans later. Get the job first and then enjoy all your options.)
Most importantly, remember that illegal questions arise from fear that you won’t perform well. The best answer of all is to get the job and perform brilliantly. All concerns and fears will then varnish, replaced by respect and appreciation for your work.
Question 56 The “Secret” Illegal Question
TRAPS: Much more frequent than the Illegal question (see Question 55) is the secret illegal question. It’s secret because it’s asked only in the interviewer’s mind. Since it’s not even expressed to you, you have no way to respond to it, and it can there be most damaging.
Example: You’re physically challenged, or a single mother returning to your professional career, or over 50, or a member of an ethnic minority, or fit any of a dozen other categories that do not strictly conform to the majority in a given company.
Your interviewer wonders, “Is this person really able to handle the job?”…”Is he or she a ‘good fit’ at a place like ours?”…”Will the chemistry ever be right with someone like this?” But the interviewer never raises such questions because they’re illegal. So what can you do?
BEST ANSWER: Remember that just because the interviewer doesn’t ask an illegal question doesn’t mean he doesn’t have it. More than likely, he is going to come up with his own answer. So you might as well help him out.
How? Well, you obviously can’t respond to an illegal question if he hasn’t even asked. This may well offend him. And there’s always the chance he wasn’t even concerned about the issue until you brought it up, and only then begins to wonder.
So you can’t address “secret” illegal questions head-on. But what you can do is make sure there’s enough counterbalancing information to more than reassure him that there’s no problem in the area he may be doubtful about.
For example, let’s say you’re a sales rep who had polio as a child and you need a cane to walk. You know your condition has never impeded your performance, yet you’re concerned that your interviewer may secretly be wondering about your stamina or ability to travel. Well, make sure that you hit these abilities very hard, leaving no doubt about your capacity to handle them well.
So, too, if you’re in any different from what passes for “normal”. Make sure, without in any way seeming defensive about yourself that you mention strengths, accomplishments, preferences and affiliations that strongly counterbalance any unspoken concern your interviewer may have.
Question 57 What was the toughest part of your last job?
TRAPS: This is slightly different from the question raised earlier, “What’s the most difficult part of being a (job title…)” because this asks what you personally have found most difficult in your last position. This question is more difficult to redefine into something positive. Your interviewer will assume that whatever you found toughest may give you a problem in your new position.
BEST ANSWER: State that there was nothing in your prior position that you found overly difficult, and let your answer go at that. If pressed to expand your answer, you could describe the aspects of the position you enjoyed more than others, making sure that you express maximum enjoyment for those tasks most important to the open position, and you enjoyed least those tasks that are unimportant to the position at hand.
Question 58 How do you define success…and how do you measure up to your own definition?
TRAPS: Seems like an obvious enough question. Yet many executives, unprepared for it, fumble the ball.
BEST ANSWER: Give a well-accepted definition of success that leads right into your own stellar collection of achievements.
Example: “The best definition I’ve come across is that success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal.”
“As to how I would measure up to that definition, I would consider myself both successful and fortunate…”(Then summarize your career goals and how your achievements have indeed represented a progressive path toward realization of your goals.)
Question 59 “The Opinion Question” – What do you think about …Abortion…The President…The Death Penalty…(or any other controversial subject)?
TRAPS: Obviously, these and other “opinion” questions should never be asked. Sometimes they come up over a combination dinner/interview when the interviewer has had a drink or two, is feeling relaxed, and is spouting off about something that bugged him in today’s news. If you give your opinion and it’s the opposite of his, you won’t change his opinions, but you could easily lose the job offer.
BEST ANSWER: In all of these instances, just remember the tale about student and the wise old rabbi. The scene is a seminary, where an overly serious student is pressing the rabbi to answer the ultimate questions of suffering, life and death. But no matter how hard he presses, the wise old rabbi will only answer each difficult question with a question of his own.
In exasperation, the seminary student demands, “Why, rabbi, do you always answer a question with another question?” To which the rabbi responds, “And why not?”
If you are ever uncomfortable with any question, asking a question in return is the greatest escape hatch ever invented. It throws the onus back on the other person, sidetracks the discussion from going into an area of risk to you, and gives you time to think of your answer or, even better, your next question!
In response to any of the “opinion” questions cited above, merely responding, “Why do you ask?” will usually be enough to dissipate any pressure to give your opinion. But if your interviewer again presses you for an opinion, you can ask another question.
Or you could assert a generality that almost everyone would agree with. For example, if your interviewer is complaining about politicians then suddenly turns to you and asks if you’re a Republican or Democrat, you could respond by saying, “Actually, I’m finding it hard to find any politicians I like these days.”
(Of course, your best question of all may be whether you want to work for someone opinionated.)
Question 60 If you won $10 million lottery, would you still work?
TRAPS: Your totally honest response might be, “Hell, no, are you serious?” That might be so, but any answer which shows you as fleeing work if given the chance could make you seem lazy. On the other hand, if you answer, “Oh, I’d want to keep doing exactly what I am doing, only doing it for your firm,” you could easily inspire your interviewer to silently mutter to himself, “Yeah, sure. Gimme a break.”
BEST ANSWER: This type of question is aimed at getting at your bedrock attitude about work and how you feel about what you do. Your best answer will focus on your positive feelings.
Example: “After I floated down from cloud nine, I think I would still hold my basic belief that achievement and purposeful work are essential to a happy, productive life. After all, if money alone bought happiness, then all rich people would be all happy, and that’s not true.
“I love the work I do, and I think I’d always want to be involved in my career in some fashion. Winning the lottery would make it more fun because it would mean having more flexibility, more options...who knows?”
“Of course, since I can’t count on winning, I’d just as soon create my own destiny by sticking with what’s worked for me, meaning good old reliable hard work and a desire to achieve. I think those qualities have built many more fortunes that all the lotteries put together.”
Question 61 Looking back on your last position, have you done your best work?
TRAPS: Tricky question. Answer “absolutely” and it can seem like your best work is behind you. Answer, “no, my best work is ahead of me,” and it can seem as if you didn’t give it your all.
BEST ANSWER: To cover both possible paths this question can take, your answer should state that you always try to do your best, and the best of your career is right now. Like an athlete at the top of his game, you are just hitting your career stride thanks to several factors. Then, recap those factors, highlighting your strongest qualifications.
Question 62 Why should I hire you from the outside when I could promote someone from within?
TRAPS: This question isn’t as aggressive as it sounds. It represents the interviewer’s own dilemma over this common problem. He’s probably leaning toward you already and for reassurance, wants to hear what you have to say on the matter.
BEST ANSWER: Help him see the qualifications that only you can offer.
Example: “In general, I think it’s a good policy to hire from within – to look outside probably means you’re not completely comfortable choosing someone from inside.
“Naturally, you want this department to be as strong as it possibly can be, so you want the strongest candidate. I feel that I can fill that bill because…(then recap your strongest qualifications that match up with his greatest needs).”
Question 63 Tell me something negative you’ve heard about our company…
TRAPS: This is a common fishing expedition to see what the industry grapevine may be saying about the company. But it’s also a trap because as an outsider, you never want to be the bearer of unflattering news or gossip about the firm. It can only hurt your chances and sidetrack the interviewer from getting sold on you.
BEST ANSWER: Just remember the rule – never be negative – and you’ll handle this one just fine.
Question 64 On a scale of one to ten, rate me as an interviewer.
TRAPS: Give a perfect “10,” and you’ll seem too easy to please. Give anything less than a perfect 10, and he could press you as to where you’re being critical, and that road leads downhill for you.
BEST ANSWER: Once again, never be negative. The interviewer will only resent criticism coming from you. This is the time to show your positivism.
However, don’t give a numerical rating. Simply praise whatever interview style he’s been using.
If he’s been tough, say “You have been thorough and tough-minded, the very qualities needed to conduct a good interview.”
If he’s been methodical, say, “You have been very methodical and analytical, and I’m sure that approach results in excellent hires for your firm.”
In other words, pay him a sincere compliment that he can believe because it’s anchored in the behavior you’ve just seen.

Good luck in your job search!

The Editors

technical quetions

2007-08-19T08:20:00.000-07:00

Technical Questions
1. A 2MB PCM(pulse code modulation) has

a) 32 channels
b) 30 voice channels & 1 signalling channel.
c) 31 voice channels & 1 signalling channel.
d) 32 channels out of which 30 voice channels, 1 signalling channel, & 1 Synchronizatio channel.
Ans: (c)
2. Time taken for 1 satellite hop in voice communication is

a) 1/2 second
b) 1 seconds
c) 4 seconds
d) 2 seconds
Ans: (a)
3. Max number of satellite hops allowed in voice communication is :

a) only one
b) more han one
c) two hops
d) four hops
Ans: (c)
4. What is the max. decimal number that can be accomodated in a byte.

a) 128
b) 256
c) 255
d) 512
Ans: (c)
5. Conditional results after execution of an instruction in a micro processor is stored in

a) register
b) accumulator
c) flag register
d) flag register part of PSW(Program Status Word)
Ans: (d)

6. Frequency at which VOICE is sampled is

a) 4 Khz
b) 8 Khz
c) 16 Khz
d) 64 Khz
Ans: (a)
7. Line of Sight is

a) Straight Line
b) Parabolic
c) Tx & Rx should be visible to each other
d) none
Ans: (c)
8. Purpose of PC(Program Counter) in a MicroProcessor is

a) To store address of TOS(Top Of Stack)
b) To store address of next instruction to be executed.
c) count the number of instructions.
d) to store base address of the stack.
Ans: (b)
9. What action is taken when the processor under execution is interrupted by a non-maskable interrupt?

a) Processor serves the interrupt request after completing the execution of the current instruction.
b) Processor serves the interupt request after completing the current task.
c) Processor serves the interupt request immediately.
d) Processor serving the interrupt request depends upon the priority of the current task under execution.
Ans: (a)
10. The status of the Kernel is

a) task
b) process
c) not defined.
d) none of the above.
Ans: (b)

11. To send a data packet using datagram , connection will be established

a) before data transmission.
b) connection is not established before data transmission.
c) no connection is required.
d) none of the above.
Ans: (c)

12. Word allignment is

a) alligning the address to the next word boundary of the machine.
b) alligning to even boundary.
c) alligning to word boundary.
d) none of the above.
Ans: (a)
13 When a 'C' function call is made, the order in which parameters passed to the function are pushed into the stack is

a) left to right
b) right to left
c) bigger variables are moved first than the smaller variales.
d) smaller variables are moved first than the bigger ones.
e) none of the above.
Ans: (b)
14 What is the type of signalling used between two exchanges?

a) inband
b) common channel signalling
c) any of the above
d) none of the above.
Ans: (a)
15 Buffering is

a) the process of temporarily storing the data to allow for small variation in device speeds
b) a method to reduce cross talks
c) storage of data within transmitting medium until the receiver is ready to receive.
d) a method to reduce routing overhead.
Ans: (a)

16. Memory allocation of variables declared in a program is

a) allocated in RAM.
b) allocated in ROM.
c) allocated on stack.
d) assigned to registers.
Ans: (c)

17. A software that allows a personal computer to pretend as a computer terminal is

a) terminal adapter
b) bulletin board
c) modem
d) terminal emulation
Ans: (d)
18. Find the output of the following program
int *p,*q;
p=(int *)1000;
q=(int *)2000;
printf("%d",(q-p));
Ans: 500

19. Which addressing mode is used in the following statements:
(a) MVI B,55
(b) MOV B,A
(c) MOV M,A
Ans. (a) Immediate addressing mode.
(b) Register Addressing Mode
(c) Direct addressing mode

20. RS-232C standard is used in _____________.
Ans. Serial I/O

21. Memory. Management in Operating Systems is done by

a) Memory Management Unit
b) Memory management software of the Operating System
c) Kernel
Ans: (b)

22. What is done for a Push opertion?
Ans: SP is decremented and then the value is stored.
23. Binary equivalent of 52

Ans. 110100

24. Hexadecimal equivalent of 3452

Ans. 72A

25. Explain Just In Time Concept ?

Ans. Elimination of waste by purchasing manufacturing exactly when needed

26. A good way of unit testing s/w program is

Ans. User test

27. OOT uses

Ans. Encapsulated of detect methods

28.EDI useful in

Ans. Electronic Transmission

29. MRPII different from MRP

Ans. Modular version of man redundant initials

30. Hard disk time for R/W head to move to correct sector

Ans. Latency Time

31. The percentage of times a page number bound in associate register is called

Ans. Bit ratio

32. Expand MODEM

Ans. Modulator and Demodulator

33. RDBMS file system can be defined as

Ans. Interrelated

34. Super Key is

Ans. Primary key and Attribute

35. Windows 95 supports

(a) Multiuser
(b) n tasks
(c) Both
(d) None

Ans. (a)

36.In the command scanf, h is used for

Ans. Short int

37.A process is defined as

Ans. Program in execution

38.A thread is

Ans. Detachable unit of executable code)

39.What is the advantage of Win NT over Win 95

Ans. Robust and secure

40.How is memory management done in Win95

Ans. Through paging and segmentation

41.What is meant by polymorphism

Ans. Redfinition of a base class method in a derived class

42.What is the essential feature of inheritance

Ans. All properties of existing class are derived

43.What does the protocol FTP do

Ans. Transfer a file b/w stations with user authentification

44.In the transport layer ,TCP is what type of protocol

Ans. Connection oriented

45.Why is a gateway used

Ans. To connect incompatible networks

46.How is linked list implemented

Ans. By referential structures

47.What method is used in Win95 in multitasking

Ans. Non preemptive check

48.What is a semaphore

Ans. A method synchronization of multiple processes

49.What is the precedence order from high to low ,of the symbols ( ) ++ /

Ans.( ) , ++, /

50.Preorder of A*(B+C)/D-G

Ans.*+ABC/-DG

51.What is the efficiency of merge sort

Ans. O(n log n)

52.In which layer are routers used

Ans.In network layer

53.Which of the following sorting algorithem has average sorting behavior --
Bubble sort,merge sort,heap sort,exchange sort

Ans. Heap sort

54.In binary search tree which traversal is used for getting ascending order values--Inorder ,post order,preorder

Ans.Inorder

55.What are device drivers used for

Ans.To provide software for enabling the hardware

56.What is fork command in unix

Ans. System call used to create process

57.What is make command in unix

Ans. Used forcreation of more than one file

58.In unix .profile contains

Ans. Start up program

59.In unix 'ls 'stores contents in

Ans.inode block

60. Which of the following involves context switch,
(a) system call
(b) priviliged instruction
(c) floating poitnt exception
(d) all the above
(e) none of the above
Ans: (a)

61. In OST, terminal emulation is done in
(a) sessions layer
(b) application layer
(c) presentation layer
(d) transport layer
Ans: (b)
62. For 1 MB memory, the number of address lines required,
(a)11
(b)16
(c)22
(d) 24
Ans. (b)
63. Semaphore is used for
(a) synchronization
(b) dead-lock avoidence
(c) box
(d) none
Ans. (a)
64. Which holds true for the following statement
class c: public A, public B
a) 2 member in class A, B should not have same name
b) 2 member in class A, C should not have same name
c) both
d) none
Ans. (a)
65.Preproconia.. does not do which one of the following
(a) macro
(b) conditional compliclation
(c) in type checking
(d) including load file
Ans. (c)

66. Piggy backing is a technique for
a) Flow control
b) Sequence
c) Acknowledgement
d) retransmition
Ans. (c)

67. Which is not a memory management scheme?
a) buddy system
b) swapping
c) monitors
d) paging
Ans : c
68. There was a circuit given using three nand gates with two inputs and one output.
Find the output.
a) OR
b) AND
c) XOR
d) NOT
Ans. (a)

69.Iintegrated check value(ICV) are used as:
Ans. The client computes the ICV and then compares it with the senders value.
70. When applets are downloaded from web sites , a byte verifier performs _________?
Ans. Status check.

71. An IP/IPX packet received by a computer using... having IP/IPX both how the packet is handled.
Ans. Read the, field in the packet header with to send IP or IPX protocol.
72. The UNIX shell ....
a) does not come with the rest of the system
b) forms the interface between the user and the kernal
c) does not give any scope for programming
d) deos not allow calling one program from with in another
e) all of the above
Ans. (b)
73. In UNIX a files i-node ......?
Ans. Is a data structure that defines all specifications of a file like the file size,
number of lines to a file, permissions etc.
74. The very first process created by the kernal that runs till the kernal process is halts is
a) init
b) getty
c) both (a) and (b)
d) none of these
Ans. (a)
75. In the process table entry for the kernel process, the process id value is
(a) 0
(b) 1
(c) 2
(d) 255
(e) it does not have a process table entry
Ans. (a)

76. Which of the following API is used to hide a window
a) ShowWindow
b) EnableWindow
c) MoveWindow
d) SetWindowPlacement
e) None of the above
Ans. (a)
77. Which function is the entry point for a DLL in MS Windows 3.1
a) Main
b) Winmain
c) Dllmain
d) Libmain
e) None
Ans. (b)
78. The standard source for standard input, standard output and standard error is
a) the terminal
b) /dev/null
c) /usr/you/input, /usr/you/output/, /usr/you/error respectively
d) None
Ans. (a)
79. The redirection operators > and >>
a) do the same function
b) differ : > overwrites, while >> appends
c) differ : > is used for input while >> is used for output
d) differ : > write to any file while >> write only to standard output
e) None of these
Ans. (b)
80. The command grep first second third /usr/you/myfile
a) prints lines containing the words first, second or third from the file /usr/you/myfile
b) searches for lines containing the pattern first in the files
second, third, and /usr/you/myfile and prints them
c) searches the files /usr/you/myfiel and third for lines containing the words first or second and prints them
d) replaces the word first with the word second in the files third and /usr/you/myfile
e) None of the above
Ans. (b)
81. You are creating a Index on EMPNO column in the EMPLOYEE table. Which statement will you use?
a) CREATE INdEX emp_empno_idx ON employee, empno;
b) CREATE INdEX emp_empno_idx FOR employee, empno;
c) CREATE INdEX emp_empno_idx ON employee(empno);
d) CREATE emp_empno_idx INdEX ON employee(empno);

Ans. c

82. Which program construct must return a value?
a) Package
b) Function
c) Anonymous block
d) Stored Procedure
e) Application Procedure

Ans. b

83. Which Statement would you use to remove the EMPLOYEE_Id_PK PRIMARY KEY constraint and all depending constraints fromthe EMPLOYEE table?
a) ALTER TABLE employee dROP PRIMARY KEY CASCAdE;
b) ALTER TABLE employee dELETE PRIMARY KEY CASCAdE;
c) MOdIFY TABLE employee dROP CONSTRAINT employee_id_pk CASCAdE;
d) ALTER TABLE employee dROP PRIMARY KEY employee_id_pk CASCAdE;
e) MOdIFY TABLE employee dELETE PRIMARY KEY employee_id_pk CASCAdE;

Ans. a

84. Which three commands cause a transaction to end? (Chosse three)
a) ALTER
b) GRANT
c) DELETE
d) INSERT
e) UPdATE
f) ROLLBACK
Ans. a ,b ,f
85. Under which circumstance should you create an index on a table?
a) The table is small.
b) The table is updated frequently.
c) A columns values are static and contain a narrow range of values
d) Two columns are consistently used in the WHERE clause join condition of SELECT
statements.

Ans.d
86. What was the first name given to Java Programming Language.

a) Oak - Java
b) Small Talk
c) Oak
d) None

Ans.a

87.When a bicycle is in motion,the force of friction exerted by the ground on the two wheels is such that it acts
(a) In the backward direction on the front wheel and in the forward direction on the rear wheel.
(b) In the forward direction on the front wheel and in the backward direction on the rear wheel.
(c) In the backward direction on both the front and rear wheels.
(d) In the backward direction on both the front and rear wheels.
Ans. (d)

88. A certain radioactive element A, has a half life = t seconds.
In (t/2) seconds the fraction of the initial quantity of the element so far decayed is nearly
(a) 29%
(b) 15%
(c) 10%
(d) 45%
Ans. (a)

89. Which of the following plots would be a straight line ?
(a) Logarithm of decay rate against logarithm of time
(b) Logarithm of decay rate against logarithm of number of decaying nuclei
(c) Decay rate against time
(d) Number of decaying nuclei against time
Ans. (b)

90. A radioactive element x has an atomic number of 100.
It decays directly into an element y which decays directly into element z.
In both processes a charged particle is emitted.
Which of the following statements would be true?
(a) y has an atomic number of 102
(b) y has an atomic number of 101
(c) z has an atomic number of 100
(d) z has an atomic number of 101
Ans. (b)

91. If the sum of the roots of the equation ax2 + bx + c=0 is equal to the sum of the squares of their reciprocals
then a/c, b/a, c/b are in
(a) AP
(b) GP
(c) HP
(d) None of these
Ans. (c)

92. A man speaks the truth 3 out of 4 times.
He throws a die and reports it to be a 6.
What is the probability of it being a 6?
(a) 3/8
(b) 5/8
(c) 3/4
(d) None of the above
Ans. (a)

93. If cos2A + cos2B + cos2C = 1 then ABC is a
(a) Right angle triangle
(b) Equilateral triangle
(c) All the angles are acute
(d) None of these
Ans. (a)

94. Image of point (3,8) in the line x + 3y = 7 is
(a) (-1,-4)
(b) (-1,4)
(c) (2,-4)
(d) (-2,-4)
Ans. (a)

95. The mass number of a nucleus is
(a) Always less than its atomic number
(b) Always more than its atomic number
(c) Sometimes more than and sometimes equal to its atomic number
(d) None of the above
Ans. (c)

96. The maximum KE of the photoelectron emitted from a surface is dependent on
(a) The intensity of incident radiation
(b) The potential of the collector electrode
(c) The frequency of incident radiation
(d) The angle of incidence of radiation of the surface
Ans. (c)

97. Which of the following is not an essential condition for interference
(a) The two interfering waves must be propagated in almost the same direction or
the two interfering waves must intersect at a very small angle
(b) The waves must have the same time period and wavelength
(c) Amplitude of the two waves should be the same
(d) The interfering beams of light must originate from the same source
Ans. (c)

98. When X-Ray photons collide with electrons
(a) They slow down
(b) Their mass increases
(c) Their wave length increases
(d) Their energy decreases
Ans. (c)

99. An electron emits energy
(a) Because its in orbit
(b) When it jumps from one energy level to another
(c) Electrons are attracted towards the nucleus
(d) The electrostatic force is insufficient to hold the electrons in orbits
Ans. (b)

100. How many bonds are present in CO2 molecule?
(a) 1
(b) 2
(c) 0
(d) 4
Ans. (d)