WorksheetsProcessing Quiz
Total questions: 20
Worksheet time: 10mins
What is the main advantage of parallel processing over serial processing?
Higher accuracy in computations
Increased speed by dividing tasks across multiple processors
Lower power consumption
Simpler programming models
Which category in Flynn's Taxonomy refers to simple, single-core, sequential processing, common in older PCs?
Single Instruction, Multiple Data (SIMD)
Single Instruction, Single Data (SISD)
Multiple Instruction, Single Data (MISD)
Multiple Instruction, Multiple Data (MIMD)
In which of the following scenarios is serial processing typically more efficient than parallel processing?
Tasks that are independent and can be executed simultaneously
Large datasets requiring simultaneous analysis
Tasks that need to be executed sequentially with dependencies between them
High-performance computing applications
What is the key distinction between pipelining and parallel processing in computer architecture?
Pipelining involves executing multiple tasks simultaneously, while parallel processing breaks a single task into smaller sub-tasks.
Pipelining overlaps the execution of different stages of an instruction, while parallel processing involves executing multiple instructions simultaneously across different processors.
They are synonyms
Pipelining is used only in multicore processors, while parallel processing can be used in both single-core and multicore processors.
What type of architecture, according to Flynn's Taxonomy, would a modern multicore PC use?
Multiple Instruction, Single Data (MISD)
Single Instruction, Single Data (SISD)
Single Instruction, Multiple Data (SIMD)
Multiple Instruction, Multiple Data (MIMD)
Instruction throughput refers to the number of instructions a processor can complete per unit of time (clock cycle or second)
True
False
What does concurrency do in computer systems?
Reduce the number of processors required
Execute multiple tasks at exactly the same time
Manage the execution of multiple tasks through multitasking
Simplify software development
According to Flynn's Taxonomy, which of the following most likely describes a system which systematically shades the images in a video?
Single Instruction, Multiple Data (SIMD)
Multiple Instruction, Single Data (MISD)
Multiple Instruction, Multiple Data (MIMD)
Single Instruction, Single Data (SISD)
Which of the following best describes a cluster computing system?
A connected group of independent computers working together as a single system
A multicore CPU
A group of nodes with shared local memory, but unequal access times to the memory.
A single powerful computer optimized for vector processing
What is a key difference between a thread and a process?
Threads run independently, while processes share resources like memory and CPU time
Threads are heavier than processes in terms of resource allocation
A process cannot have multiple threads, while a thread can have multiple processes
Threads share the same memory space within a process, while each process its own memory space
Which of the following is the least common classification in Flynn's Taxonomy and is rarely used in practice?
Single Instruction, Single Data (SISD)
Multiple Instruction, Single Data (MISD)
Single Instruction, Multiple Data (SIMD)
Multiple Instruction, Multiple Data (MIMD)
What is the main difference between NUMA and SMP? Choose 2
NUMA processors must communicate through internet networks while SMPs do not use networks
SMP has multiple processors, while NUMA has only one
NUMA is more scalable than SMP
In NUMA, memory access time depends on the location of the memory relative to a processor
Which of the following best describes load balancing in a distributed system?
Shifting the entire workload to one server to minimize communication overhead
Using redundant processes to execute the same tasks multiple times
Distributing tasks across multiple servers to ensure no single server is overwhelmed, improving overall system performance
Allocating all resources to one processor to handle tasks more efficiently
Shared memory is more scalable than distributed memory?
True
False
_____________ allows programs to handle multiple tasks by switching between them, while ___________ utilizes multiple processors to perform tasks at the same time.
Concurrency, parallelism
Parallelism, concurrency
Pipelining, concurrency
Parallelism, pipelining
What is a defining feature of a Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) system?
A single powerful processor executes multiple tasks simultaneously
Processors share a common memory pool and operate symmetrically
Multiple processors work together, but each has its own private memory
A single instruction operates on multiple data points at once
According to Amdahl’s Law, what is the primary limitation on the speedup gained from parallelizing a portion of a program?
The number of current processors
The amount of memory in the system
The proportion of the program that cannot be parallelized
The clockspeed of each processor
In the context of parallel processing, what is a node?
A distinct computing unit, such as a processor or a computer, that performs part of a larger computation
A single thread within a process that handles part of a task
A shared memory space used by multiple processors
A virtual machine responsible for managing all parallel tasks
Which of these Flynn’s Taxonomy classifications is used for image rendering?
Single Instruction, Single Data (SISD)
Multiple Instruction, Single Data (MISD)
Single Instruction, Multiple Data (SIMD)
Multiple Instruction, Multiple Data (MIMD)
What is a key characteristic of a Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP) system?
Each processor has its own private memory that cannot be accessed by others
All processors share a single, uniform memory space and are treated equally
Processors communicate via message passing instead of shared memory
Only one processor can execute instructions at a time
