2010

i)

Relation is considered to be n sound normal form if it is in first normal form and it has no ________
dependencies.
a) referential
b) functional
c) partial key
d) transitive

ii)

Four DML commands are

a) Create, Update, Delete, Select
c) Create, Alter, Delete, Select

b) Insert, Update, Drop, Select

d) Insert, Modify, Delete, Select

iii)

Given the relation Schema Bank(BankID, AccountNumb, Balance, Customer) with FDs :
{ BankID, AccountNumb Balance, BankID, AccountNumb Customer, Customer BankID }
What is the highest normal form for the relation schema Bank?
a) First
b) Second
c) Third
d) Boyce Codd

iv)

Which of the following feature is supported in the relation database model?

a) Complex data types
b) Multi valued attributes
c) Associations with multiplicities
d) Generalization relationships

v)

The information about data in a database is called

a) Meta data
b) Tera data
c) Hyper data
d) none of these.

vi)

The ability to modify the internal schema without causing any change to external schema is
a) Physical data independence
b) Logical data independence
c) External data independence
d) none of these.

vii) One of the shortcomings of the file system is

a) data availability
b) fixed records
c) sequential records
d) lack of security.
viii) Which of the following levels of obstruction involves the view of data?
a) External level
b) Conceptual level
c) Physical level
d) None of these.
ix)

A normal form in which every determinant is a key, is

a) 2NF
b) 3NF
c) BCNF
d) 4NF

x)

Overall logical structure of a database can be graphically expressed by

a) ER-diagram
b) Records
c) Relation
d) Hierarchy.

2011
i)

A top-to-bottom relationship among the items in a database is established by a

a) hierarchical schema b) relational schema c) network schema
d) all of these

ii) In relational model, degree of a relation is

a) No. of rows
b) Schema

c) No. of attributes

iii) Relational calculus is a

a) procedural language
c) query language

b) non-procedural language
d) normalization technique

iv) Domain can be defined as

a) the value of a field
c) value of a table

b) value of a tuple
d) none of these

v) For R = { J, K, L }, F = { JK L , L K }the candidate keys are

a) J and K
b) JK
c) only J

d) No. of key attributes

d) JK and JL

vi) Additional schema for a relationship set is essential in case of

a) one-to-many relationship
b) many-to-one relationship
c) many-to-many relationship
d) one of these
vii) Which of the following is true?
a) A super key is always a candidate key
c) Generalization is a bottom-up design approach

b) Every 3NF schema is also in BCNF

d) None of these

viii) Serializability of concurrent transactions are ensured by

a) Locking
b) Time-stamping
c) both of these

d) none of these

ix) Which of the following is not a DDL statement ?

a) Alter
b) Drop

d) Select

c) Create

x) Which index is specified on the non-ordering fields of a file?

a) Primary
b) Clustering
c) Secondary
xi) A transaction is said to be atomic, if and only if
a) transaction is partially completed
c) transaction does not take place

d) None of these.

b) transaction is fully completed

d) none of these

2012
i)

Which is not a function of DBA ?

a) Schema definition
c) Designing security

ii) The entity integrity constraint states that a

a) no primary key value can be null
c) duplicate object values are allowed

b) Granting of authorization for data access

d) Definition Triggers.

b) a pat of the key may be null

d) none of these

iii) Which one of the following is correct?

a) All functional dependencies are many-to-many relationships.
b) All functional dependencies are many-to-one relationships.
c) All functional dependencies are one-to-one relationships.
d) None of these.
iv) What does an attribute mean?
a) Property of an entity
c) Something which relates the existing entities.

b) Something about which we collect data.

d) Relation of two entities.

v) Which of the following problems do concurrency controls deal with?

a) Lost updates
b) Inconsistent retrievals
c) Uncommitted dependency
d) All of these
vi) In 2-phase locking a transaction must
a) releases all its locks at the same time
b) NOT obtain any new locks once it has started releasing locks.
c) only obtain locks on items not used by any other transactions
d) ensure that deadlocks will never occur.
vii) Which one of the following is not true about a B-tree?
a) All nodes including the root must be at least half full
b) All leaf nodes must be at the same level.
c) All nodes with k keys except the leaves must have k+1 descendents.
d) The height of the tree grows when the root splits.
viii) Which one of the following is not an indexing technique?
a) Primary index
b) Secondary index
c) Multilevel index

d) Sequential index.

ix) Which one of the following is true about domains in SQL ?

a) SQL domains are user-defined data types
b) SQL domains must be used in data definition
c) SQL domains provide strong typing
d) SQL domains are only synthetic shorthand for system-defined data type.
x) Which one of the following does not always have the same list of attributes that the operands have?
a) Project
b) Select
c) Union
d) Difference

2013
i)

In the relational mode, cardinality is termed as

a) number of tuples
b) number of attributes
c) number of tables
d) number of constraints.

ii)

Relational Calculus is a
a) procedural language
c) data-definition language

iii)

b) non-procedural language
d) high level language

Cartesian product in relational algebra is

a) a unary operator
b) a binary operator

c) a ternary operator

d) not defined.

iv)

DML is provided for

a) description of logical structure of database b) addition of new structures in the database system
c) manipulation & processing of database
d) definition of physical structure of database system.

v)

In a relational model, relations are termed as

a) Tuples
b) Attributes
c) Tables

vi)

In case of entity integrity, the primary key may be

a) not Null
b) Null
c) both Null & not Null

vii) In an E-R diagram an entity set is represented by a

a) rectangle
b) ellipse
c) diamond box

d) Rows

d) any value

d) circle.

viii) Which of the following operations is used if we are interested in only certain columns of a table ?
a) Projection
b) Selection
c) Union
d) Join.
ix)

x)

Which of the following is a comparison operator in SQL ?

a) =
b) Like
c) Between

d) All of these.

Using relational algebra the query that finds the customers, who have a balance of over 1000 is

a)
b)
c)
d)

customer_name(balance > 1000(Deposit))

customer_name(balance > 1000(Deposit))
customer_name(balance > 1000(Borrow))
customer_name(balance > 1000(Borrow))

2014
i)

Consider the following SQL statements:

A) select * from student where year = 2nd or year = 3rd
B) select * from student where year in(2nd, 3rd)
a) A is correct while B is not.
c) Both will generate same result set

b) B is correct while A is not

d) A and B will generate different result sets.

ii)

The employee salary should not be greater than Rs. 20,000. This is
a) integrity constraint
b) referential constraint
c) over-defined constraint
d) feasible constraint

iii)

Consider the following query:

(((P WHERE COLOUR = RED) [P#] JOIN SP) [S#] JOIN S)[SNAME]. Which one of the
following set of operations does the above query involve?
a) 1 selection, 2 joins, 3 projections
b) 1 projection, 2 joins, 3 selections
c) 2 selections, 2 joins, 3 projections
d) 1 selection, 2 joins, 3 intersections

iv)

Second Normal form

a) Eliminates transitive dependency between non-key attributes and key attributes.
b) Eliminates partial dependency between non-key attributes and key attributes.
c) Create separate tables for the set of values that apply to multiply records.
d) Creates a separate table for each set of related data and identify a primary key for each such set.

v)

When a row is deleted which one of the following techniques should be used to maintain integrity?
a) The row is deleted and nothing else is done
b) The row is deleted and the references to the deleted primary key, if any, are replaced by NULL.
c) The delete operation is not allowed if the rows primary key is a target of a foreign key
d) The row is deleted as well as the rows from other tables that have foreign keys that have the
deleted primary key as their target.

vi)

What is the name of a trigger that triggers itself?

a) Triggering trigger
b) Cascading trigger
c) Mutating trigger
d) None of the above

vii) Given the following relation instance

X
Y
Z
----------------------------------------1
4
2
1
5
3
1
6
3
3
2
2
Which of the following functional dependencies are satisfied by the instance?
a) XY Z and Z Y
b) YZ X and Y Z
c) YZ X and X Z
d) XZ Y and Y X

viii) If a table R consists only of its primary key (which may consist of a number of attributes) and has no
other attributes, the table would always be in
a) 2NF but may not be in 3NF
b) 3NF but may not be in BCNF
c) 4NF
d) none of these
ix)

Three transactions attempt to book seats on a flight that has 12 seats available. The transactions are
T1 for 3 seats, transaction T2 for 5 seats and transaction T3 for 7 seats. If a schedule that is
serializable is executed, the number of seats sold cannot be
a) 7
b) 8
c) 10
d) 12

x)

Which of the following is the size of the data item chosen as the unit of protection by a concurrency
control program?
a) Lock
b) Blocking factor
c) Granularity
d) None of these.

xi)

A data model is a collection of conceptual tools for describing

a) data and data relationships.
b) data semantics and consistency constraints.
c) data, data relationships, data semantics and consistency constraints.
d) none of these.

xii) Which of the following is a recovery technique that does not require logs?
a) Deferred update
b) Immediate update
c) Shadow paging
d) none of these.
xiii) Blocking factor denotes
a) blocks fetched per sec
c) blocks needed for storing a relation

b) tuples fit per blocks

d) none of these.

MCQ for Practice I

i)

One of the shortcomings of the file system is

a) data availability
b) fixed records
c) sequential records
d) lack of security

ii)

A trigger is
a) a statement that enables to start any DBMS
b) a statement that is executed by the user when debugging an application program.
c) a condition the system tests for the validity of the database user.
d) a statement that is executed automatically by the system of a modification.

iii)

One difference between TRUCATE and DELETE command is

a) TRUNCATE deletes the table but DELETE only deletes records.
b) DELETE operation can be rolled back, but TRUNCATE operation cannot be rolled back.
c) TRUNCATE can be rolled back but DELETE cannot be rolled back.
d) TRUNCATE is a DML command but DELETE is DDL command.

iv)

Which defining a numeric number field that can hold 3 digits before the decimal point and 3 digits
after the decimal point, the width would be given as
a) 6
b) 7
c) 8
d) 3

v)

Advantage of locking algorithms in concurrent execution of DB transaction is _________

a) deadlock
b) concurrency
c) consistency
d) none of these.

vi)

Consider the schema R = ( S, T, U, V ) and the dependencies S T, T U, U V and V S.

Let R = (R1 and R2) be a decomposition such that R1 R2 = . The decomposition is :
a) Not in 2NF
b) In 2NF but not in 3NF
c) In 3NF but not in 2NF
d) In both 2NF and 3NF.

vii) EMPNO
ENAME
SAL
A822
RAMASWAMY
3500
A812
NARAYAN
5000
A973
UMESH
2850
A500
BALAJI
5750
Use these data for the following question.
Select SAL from EMP E1 where 3 > (Select count(*)
from EMP E2 where E1.SAL > E2.SAL) will retrieve
a) 3500, 5000, 2500
b) 5000, 2850
c) 2850, 5750

d) 5000, 5750

viii) The information about data in a database is called

a) meta data
b) tera data
c) hyper data

d) none of these

ix)

R = { I, J, K, L }, F = { I K, IL J, JK L, L K }. The candidate keys are

a) J and K
b) JK
c) only I
d) JK and JL.

x)

Consider the primary key foreign key relationship between Employee and Department table via Dept
ID column. If you try to delete a department in Department table which is referred in Employee
table, Oracle by default does not allow this. This is known as ON DELETE _________
a) SET CASCADE
b) SET DEFAULT
c) RESTRICT
d) SET NULL.

MCQ for Practice II

i)

The operation on certain relation X, produces Y such that Y contains only selected attributes of X.
Such an operation is
a) Projection
b) Selection
c) Union
d) None of these

ii)

In an E-R diagram dashed ellipses represent

a) Attributes
c) Multi-valued attributes

b) Derived Attributes
d) None of these

iii)

Additional schema for a relationship set is essential in case of

a) one-to-many relationship
b) many-to-one relationship
c) many-to-many relationship
d) none of these.

iv)

Consider a relation schema R = { D, E, F } and set of functional dependencies

F = { D E , E F }. If R is decomposed into R1 = { D, E } and R2 = { E, F }, then the
decomposition is
a) lossless-join decomposition
b) dependency preserving
c) both (a) and (b)
d) none of these.

v)

Which of the following is not a DDL statement?

a) ALTER
c) CREATE

b) DROP
d) SELECT

Which one is an odd member?

a) Dirty read
c) phantom deadlock

b) Lost update
d) Incorrect summary

vi)

vii) F covers E implies

a) every FD in E is also in F+
c) both (a) and (b)

b) every FD in F is also in E+
d) none of these.

viii) Three transactions attempt to book seats on a flight that has 12 seats available. The transactions are
transaction T1 for 3 seats, transaction T2 for 5 seats and transaction T3 for 7 seats. If a schedule that
is serializable is executed, the number of seats sold cannot be
a) 10
b) 12
c) 8
d) 7
ix)

Conversion of locking mode from sharable to exclusive is called

a) down gradation
b) upgradation
c) unlock
d) none of these.

x)

Lock point in 2 phase locking protocol indicates

a) start of the growing phase
b) end of the shrinking phase
c) end of the growing phase
d) none of these.

xi)

In case of entity integrity, the primary key may be

a) not NULL
b) NULL
c) both NULL & not NULL
d) Any value

xii) Given the following relation instance

------X Y Z
------1 4 2
1 5 3
1 6 3
3 2 2
------Which of the following functional dependencies are satisfied by the instance?
a) XY Z and Z Y
b) YZ X and Y Z
c) YZ X and X Z
d) XZ Y and Y X
xiii) View is a
a) temporary table
c) dynamic table

b) virtual table
d) permanent table

xiv) The ability to modify the internal schema, without causing any change to external schema is
a) external data independence
b) logical data independence
c) physical data independence
d) internal data independence
xv) Cardinality ratio means
a) number of attributes associated with an entity
b) number of entities related with other entities via a relationship
c) number of entities in an entity set
d) ratio of number of columns and rows in a table.
xvi) The command used to delete the records from a table is
a) Truncate
b) Drop
c) Select
d) All of these.
xvii) Aggregation is
a) specialization
c) abstraction

b) generalization
d) all of these.

xviii) Prime attributes are part of

a) primary domain
c) candidate key

b) multivalued domain
d) none of these.

xix) There is a conflict in a schedule if

a) two transactions work on the same data item.
b) the operations are from different transactions
c) at least one of the operations is write
d) all of these.