Information Systems practice questions (Jahziah exam)

Area 01 · Foundations of information systems

A logistics company’s shipment tracking system records each shipment’s estimated delivery date, actual delivery date, and current status. The operations manager needs a weekly report that flags shipments delivered late and shows the average delay in days per carrier. The current system only stores raw shipment records and cannot produce this report. Which type of information system should be added to meet the manager’s need, and why?

Pick an answer to check yourself.

1. AA transaction processing system (TPS), because it can record each shipment’s delivery details in real time.
2. BA management information system (MIS), because it can process transaction data into scheduled reports that summarize late shipments and average delays by carrier.
3. CAn executive information system (EIS), because it provides strategic dashboards for senior executives.
4. DA decision support system (DSS), because it uses models to recommend the best carrier for each shipment.

Area 02 · Data & information

A collaboration platform stores each shared document as a single document in a document-oriented store, and every edit writes the entire document back. Two editors open the same document, which is at version 12. Editor A saves her changes first, creating version 13. Editor B, who has been editing for ten minutes and whose save request still carries version 12, then submits his write. The store enforces optimistic concurrency control using the version number. Which analysis best explains what the store should do and why it matters for this workload?

Pick an answer to check yourself.

1. AReject B's write because its base version 12 is stale, forcing B to reload version 13; this protects A's edits but converts every overlapping long edit into a retry or lost work.
2. BAccept B's write because the version number is only advisory metadata and last-write-wins resolves the ordering; the analysis concerns only which of the two writes is stored last.
3. CMerge A's and B's edits field by field and store them as version 14, since the store can reconcile two divergent copies of the same document without knowing which fields each editor changed.
4. DBlock A's original save until B's session ends, because optimistic concurrency takes an exclusive lock at the moment the document is first read for editing.

Area 03 · Information systems technology

An organization runs a public web tier, an application tier, and a database tier on one flat network segment. An attacker who compromises the public web server can connect directly to the database. The security team proposes to segment the infrastructure into zones with a policy that only the application tier may open connections to the database port. Which analysis best describes why this change reduces risk?

Pick an answer to check yourself.

1. AIt reduces the attack surface reachable from a compromised web server by limiting lateral movement to paths the zone policy permits, so a web-tier compromise no longer grants direct database access.
2. BIt prevents the public web server from being compromised in the first place by hiding it behind the database zone.
3. CIt encrypts traffic between the tiers, so an attacker on the web server cannot read database queries.
4. DIt makes the database invisible to attackers by removing the database from the network entirely.

Area 04 · Application development

A programmer writes a predicate that must be true exactly when an integer score is outside the closed interval [10, 20] (that is, less than 10 or greater than 20). The proposed predicate is: (score < 10) OR (score > 20) A test with score = 20 is run. Which analysis of the predicate is correct?

Pick an answer to check yourself.

1. AThe predicate returns true for score = 20, because 20 is not less than 10.
2. BThe predicate returns false for score = 20, because both (20 < 10) and (20 > 20) are false, so the OR is false.
3. CThe predicate returns false for score = 20, because the OR should be an AND for interval exclusion.
4. DThe predicate returns true for score = 20, because 20 is greater than or equal to 10.

Area 05 · Organizational ethics & management

An information systems team is designing the data-retention policy for a new patient-monitoring platform. The team adopts a rule: a retention period may be extended only if the extension does not shift the risk of the older data onto people who cannot see or consent to that risk (for example, later patients whose data are merged with it). A proposal would keep individual patient records for ten years so that future patients benefit from a larger training set. Applying the team's rule, which decision best reflects sustainable, adaptive data practice?

Pick an answer to check yourself.

1. AApprove the ten-year retention, because helping future patients with a larger training set is a benefit to society.
2. BReject any retention longer than the monitoring period, because no data may ever be kept beyond its original purpose.
3. CApprove the extension only if the retained records are reduced to a form that removes the individual risk to their original subjects, so future gains are not built on risk held by those who cannot consent.
4. DApprove the extension and compensate the original patients financially, because payment removes the need for their consent.

Area 06 · Information system integration

A project manager inherits an information-systems project whose team spans three time zones. Status meetings are held only at 09:00 in the project manager's zone, so the offshore developers routinely submit written summaries that the onsite analysts never read. Two integration defects reached acceptance testing because neither side surfaced them in time. Which analysis of the team and communication problem is most defensible, and what is the appropriate remedy?

Pick an answer to check yourself.

1. AThe problem is a scheduling conflict; move the meeting to a time more convenient for the offshore team and keep the same format.
2. BThe problem is insufficient developer skill at the offshore site; require the offshore team to submit more detailed written reports.
3. CThe problem is that onsite analysts lack autonomy; give them authority to reject offshore deliverables that arrive without a meeting.
4. DThe problem is one-way, asynchronous information flow that is never consumed; restructure communication so information is exchanged in both directions and integrated defects surface before acceptance testing.