AP Computer Science Principles Unit 4: Big Idea 4: Computer Systems and Networks Practice Exam

1. A data packet is being sent from device A to device D. Which of the following represents a valid path the packet could take?

2. The design of this network demonstrates redundancy. Which of the following statements best explains how this redundancy contributes to the network's fault tolerance?

3. A student types www.collegeboard.org into their web browser and presses Enter. The browser then displays the College Board homepage. Which of the following statements accurately distinguishes between the roles of the Internet and the World Wide Web in this process?

4. A large image file is being sent from a server to a client computer. The file is broken into 100 numbered packets. The client receives the packets in the following order: 1, 2, 4, 3, 5, ..., 100. Which protocol is primarily responsible for reassembling the packets into the correct order to display the image properly?

5. The Internet is designed to be highly scalable. Which of the following features is most critical to its ability to grow and connect millions of new devices without requiring a complete redesign?

6. A company hosts its website on multiple servers distributed across different geographic locations. If a natural disaster causes a power outage in one location, taking its servers offline, users can still access the website from servers in other locations. This is an example of a system that is:

7. A programmer needs to render a complex 3D animation. Sequential approach: Rendering all 1,000 frames of the animation one by one on a single computer takes 2,000 seconds. Parallel approach: The task is divided among 10 computers. There is a 5-second overhead to distribute the task and a 5-second process to combine the final results. Each computer renders 100 frames, and the longest time any single computer takes is 200 seconds. What is the total time for the parallel solution?

8. Using the information from the previous question, what is the speedup of the parallel solution compared to the sequential solution?

9. A scientific research project requires analyzing petabytes of astronomical data, a task that would take a single supercomputer several years to complete. Which of the following is the most significant benefit of using distributed computing for this task?

10. Which of the following best defines the term "protocol" in the context of computer networks?