Exactprep Data-Management-Foundations Questions

Cardinalitydefines theminimum and maximum number of occurrencesof one entity in relation to another.

Example Usage in an ER Model:

One-to-Many (1:M): Acustomer can place multiple orders, but each order belongs to onlyonecustomer.

Customers (1) ——— (M) Orders

Cardinality notation:

(1,1) → One-to-One

(0,M) → Zero-to-Many

(1,M) → One-to-Many

Why Other Options Are Incorrect:

Option B (Physical design) (Incorrect):Focuses onstorage and indexing, not relationships.

Option C (Attribute minimum) (Incorrect):No such formal term in database modeling.

Option D (Partition) (Incorrect):Refers todividing tables, not relationship constraints.

Thus, the correct answer isCardinality, as it definesmin/max constraints on relationships.

Binary searchis an algorithm that finds a search value byrepeatedly dividing the search space into two halves. It is commonly used inindexed searches.

Example Usage in Databases:

B-Trees and B+ Trees(used in database indexing) applybinary searchto navigate the index efficiently.

If searching for ID = 50 in asorted list of IDs, binary search:

Splits the list into two halves.

Checks the middle value.

Eliminates half of the dataset.

Repeats until the value is found.

Why Other Options Are Incorrect:

Option A (Table scan) (Incorrect):Readsevery row,much slowerthan binary search.

Option C (Index scan) (Incorrect):Uses indexes but does not necessarily apply binary search.

Option D (Fan-out) (Incorrect):Describesbranching in B-Trees, not searching.

Thus, the correct answer isBinary search, as it repeatedlysplits the indexin two.

Aprimary keyuniquely identifies each row in a table. When a primary key consists ofonly one field, it is called aSimple Primary Key.

Types of Primary Keys:

Simple Primary Key (Correct Answer):

Contains onlyone column.

Example:

sql

CREATE TABLE Students (

StudentID INT PRIMARY KEY,

Name VARCHAR(50)

);

Composite Primary Key:

Usesmultiple columnsto ensure uniqueness.

Example:

sql

CREATE TABLE Orders (

OrderID INT,

ProductID INT,

PRIMARY KEY (OrderID, ProductID)

);

Surrogate Primary Key:

A system-generatedunique identifier(e.g., UUID or AUTO_INCREMENT).

Why Other Options Are Incorrect:

Option B (Duplicate) (Incorrect):A primary keymust be unique, so itcannot be duplicate.

Option C (Numeric) (Incorrect):While primary keyscan be numeric, they can also be alphanumeric (VARCHAR).

Option D (Composite) (Incorrect):Acompositekey consists ofmultiple fields, whereas a simple key isa single field.

Thus, the correct answer isSimple, since aone-field primary keyis a simple primary key.

In SQL,literalsrepresent explicit values such asnumbers, strings, or binary datadirectly written into queries. For example:

SELECT * FROM Employees WHERE Salary > 50000;

Here, 50000 is anumeric literal.

Option A (Correct):Literalsare explicit values used in SQL queries, such as 123, 'John Doe', and TRUE.

Option B (Incorrect):Commentsare non-executable text used for documentation within SQL code, typically denoted by -- or /* ... */.

Option C (Incorrect):Identifiersare names oftables, columns, or other database objects, such as EmployeeID.

Option D (Incorrect):Keywordsare reserved words in SQL (e.g., SELECT, FROM, WHERE) that define operations and syntax.