DBMS and SQL MCQs for Placement Drives

1. Which of the following is not a type of database model?

a) Relational model
b) Network model
c) Hierarchical model
d) Linear model

Answer: d) Linear model

2. In SQL, which command is used to remove a table from the database?

a) REMOVE TABLE
b) DROP TABLE
c) DELETE TABLE
d) TRUNCATE TABLE

Answer: b) DROP TABLE

3. What does ACID stand for in database transactions?

a) Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability

b) Aggregation, Concurrency, Integrity, Durability
c) Atomicity, Concurrency, Isolation, Dependency
d) Association, Consistency, Integrity, Durability

Answer: a) Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability

4. Which normal form deals with removing transitive dependencies?

a) First Normal Form (1NF)

b) Second Normal Form (2NF)
c) Third Normal Form (3NF)
d) Boyce-Codd Normal Form (BCNF)

Answer: c) Third Normal Form (3NF)

5. In SQL, which of the following is not a type of join?

a) INNER JOIN
b) LEFT JOIN
c) RIGHT JOIN
d) CENTRAL JOIN

Answer: d) CENTRAL JOIN

6. What is the purpose of the HAVING clause in SQL?

a) To filter rows before grouping

b) To filter groups after grouping
c) To sort the result set
d) To join multiple tables

Answer: b) To filter groups after grouping

7. Which of the following is not a valid aggregate function in SQL?

a) COUNT()
b) SUM()
c) MEDIAN()
d) AVG()

Answer: c) MEDIAN()

8. What does DDL stand for in the context of SQL?

a) Data Definition Language

b) Data Manipulation Language
c) Database Definition Language
d) Data Description Language

Answer: a) Data Definition Language

9. Which of the following is used to enforce referential integrity in a relational

database?

a) Primary Key
b) Foreign Key
c) Unique Key
d) Candidate Key

Answer: b) Foreign Key

10. What is the result of the following SQL query?

SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT column_name) FROM table_name;

a) Returns the number of unique values in column_name

b) Returns the total number of rows in the table
c) Returns the number of columns in the table
d) Returns an error

Answer: a) Returns the number of unique values in column_name

11. Which SQL statement is used to add new data to a database?

a) ADD
b) INSERT
c) UPDATE
d) CREATE

Answer: b) INSERT

12. What is a view in SQL?

a) A physical table in the database

b) A virtual table based on the result of an SQL statement
c) A temporary table that exists only during a transaction
d) A system table that stores metadata

Answer: b) A virtual table based on the result of an SQL statement

13. Which of the following is not a type of index in databases?

a) B-tree index
b) Bitmap index
c) Hash index
d) Queue index

Answer: d) Queue index

14. What does the term "cardinality" refer to in database design?

a) The number of attributes in a relation

b) The number of tuples in a relation
c) The number of relations in a database
d) The number of foreign keys in a table

Answer: b) The number of tuples in a relation

15. Which SQL clause is used to sort the result set?

a) SORT BY
b) ORDER BY
c) ARRANGE BY
d) GROUP BY
Answer: b) ORDER BY

16. What is database?

A database is a collection of information that is organized. So that it can easily be
accessed, managed, and updated.

17. What is DBMS?

DBMS stands for Database Management System. It is a collection of programs that
enables user to create and maintain a database.
18. What is a Database system?
The database and DBMS software together is called as Database system.
19. What are the advantages of DBMS?
I. Redundancy is controlled.
II. Providing multiple user interfaces.
III. Providing backup and recovery
IV. Unauthorized access is restricted.
V. Enforcing integrity constraints.
20. What is normalization?
It is a process of analysing the given relation schemas based on their Functional
Dependencies (FDs) and primary key to achieve the properties (1).Minimizing
redundancy, (2). Minimizing insertion, deletion and update anomalies.
21. What is Data Model?
A collection of conceptual tools for describing data, data relationships data
semantics and constraints.
22. What is E-R model?
E-R model is known as an Entity-Relationship model in the DBMS which is based
on the concept of the Entities and the relationship that exists among these entities.
Entities are described in a database by a set of attributes.
23. What is Object Oriented model?
This model is based on collection of objects. An object contains values stored in
instance variables with in the object. An object also contains bodies of code that
operate on the object. These bodies of code are called methods. Objects that contain
same types of values and the same methods are grouped together into classes.
24. What is an Entity?
An entity is a thing or object of importance about which data must be captured.
25. What are the differences between DDL, DML and DCL in SQL?
DDL stands for Data Definition Language. SQL queries like CREATE, ALTER,
DROP and RENAME come under this.
DML stands for Data Manipulation Language. SQL queries like SELECT, INSERT
and UPDATE come under this. DCL stands for Data Control Language. SQL queries
like GRANT and REVOKE come under this.
26. What is DML Compiler?
It translates DML statements in a query language into low-level instruction that the
query evaluation engine can understand.
27. What is Query evaluation engine?
It executes low-level instruction generated by compiler.
28. What is Functional Dependency?
Functional Dependency is the starting point of normalization. Functional
Dependency exists when a relation between two attributes allows you to uniquely
determine the corresponding attribute’s value.
29. What is 1 NF (Normal Form)?
The first normal form or 1NF is the first and the simplest type of normalization that
can be implemented in a database. The main aims of 1NF are to:
1. Eliminate duplicative columns from the same table.
2. Create separate tables for each group of related data and identify each row
with a unique column (the primary key).
30. What is Fully Functional dependency?
 A functional dependency X Y is full functional dependency if removal of any
attribute ‘A’ from X means that the dependency does not hold any more.
31. What is 2NF?
A relation schema R is in 2NF if it is in 1NF and every non-prime attribute ‘A’ in R
is fully functionally dependent on primary key.
32. What is 3NF?
A relation is in third normal form if it is in Second Normal Form and there are no
functional (transitive) dependencies between two (or more) non-primary key
attributes.
33. What is BCNF (Boyce-Codd Normal Form)?
A table is in Boyce-Codd normal form (BCNF) if and only if it is in 3NF and every
determinant is a candidate key.
34. What is 4NF?
Fourth normal form requires that a table be BCNF and contain no multi-valued
dependencies.
35. What is 5NF?
A table is in fifth normal form (5NF) or Project-Join Normal Form (PJNF) if it is in
4NF and it cannot have a lossless decomposition into any number of smaller tables.
36. What is a query?
A query with respect to DBMS relates to user commands that are used to interact
with a data base.
37. What is meant by query optimization?
The phase that identifies an efficient execution plan for evaluating a query that has
the least estimated cost is referred to as query optimization.
38. What is an attribute?
It is a particular property, which describes the entity.
39. What is RDBMS?
Relational Data Base Management Systems (RDBMS) are database management
systems that maintain data records and indices in tables.
40. What is SQL?
SQL stands for Structured Query Language. SQL is an ANSI (American National
Standards Institute) standard computer language for accessing and manipulating
database systems. SQL statements are used to retrieve and update data in a
database.
41. What is Stored Procedure?
A stored procedure is a named group of SQL statements that have been previously
created and stored in the server database.
42. What is a view?
A view may be a subset of the database or it may contain virtual data that is
derived from the database files but is not explicitly stored.
43. What is a Trigger?
A trigger is a SQL procedure that initiates an action when an event (INSERT,
DELETE or UPDATE) occurs.
44. What is Index?
An index is a physical structure containing pointers to the data.
45. What is extension and intension?
Extension -It is the number of tuples present in a table at any instance. This is time
dependent.
 Intension -It is a constant value that gives the name, structure of table and the
constraints laid on it.
46. What do you mean by atomicity and aggregation?
Atomicity-Atomicity states that database modifications must follow an “all or
nothing” rule. Each transaction is said to be “atomic.” If one part of the transaction
fails, the entire transaction fails.
Aggregation - A feature of the entity relationship model that allows a relationship
set to participate in another relationship set. This is indicated on an ER diagram by
drawing a dashed box around the aggregation.
47. What is RDBMS KERNEL?
Two important pieces of RDBMS architecture are the kernel, which is the software,
and the data dictionary, which consists of the system- level data structures used by
the kernel to manage the database.
48. Name the sub-systems of a RDBMS?
I/O, Security, Language Processing, Process Control, Storage Management, Logging
and Recovery, Distribution Control, Transaction Control, Memory Management,
Lock Management.
49. How do you communicate with an RDBMS?
You communicate with an RDBMS using Structured Query Language (SQL)
50. Disadvantage in File Processing System?
· Data redundancy & inconsistency.
· Difficult in accessing data.
· Data isolation.
· Data integrity.
· Concurrent access is not possible.
· Security Problems.
51. What is VDL (View Definition Language)?
It specifies user views and their mappings to the conceptual schema.
52. What is SDL (Storage Definition Language)?
This language is to specify the internal schema. This language may specify the
mapping between two schemas.
53. Describe concurrency control?
Concurrency control is the process managing simultaneous operations against a
database so that database integrity is no compromised. There are two approaches to
concurrency control.
The pessimistic approach involves locking and the optimistic approach involves
versioning.
54. Describe the difference between homogeneous and heterogeneous distributed
database?
A homogenous database is one that uses the same DBMS at each node. A
heterogeneous database is one that may have a different DBMS at each node.
55. What is a distributed database?
A distributed database is a single logical database that is spread across more than
one node or locations that are all connected via some communication link.
56. Explain the difference between two and three-tier architectures?
Three-tier architecture includes a client and two server layers.
The application code is stored on the application server and the database is stored
on the database server. A two-tier architecture includes a client and one server
layer.
 The database is stored on the database server.
57. Briefly describe the three types of SQL commands?
Data definition language commands are used to create, alter, and drop tables. Data
manipulation commands are used to insert, modify, update, and query data in the
database. Data control language commands help the DBA to control the database.
58. List some of the properties of a relation?
Relations in a database have a unique name and no multivalued attributes exist.
Each row is unique and each attribute within a relation has a unique name. The
sequence of both columns and rows is irrelevant.
59. Explain the differences between an intranet and an extranet?
An Internet database is accessible by everyone who has access to a Web site. An
intranet database limits access to only people within a given organization.
60. What is SQL Deadlock?
Deadlock is a unique situation in a multi user system that causes two or more users
to wait indefinitely for a locked resource.
61. What is a Catalog?
A catalog is a table that contains the information such as structure of each file, the
type and storage format of each data item and various constraints on the data. The
information stored in the catalog is called Metadata.
62. What is data ware housing & OLAP?
Data warehousing and OLAP (online analytical processing) systems are the
techniques used in many companies to extract and analyze useful information from
very large databases for decision making.
63. What is data ware housing & OLAP?
Data warehousing and OLAP (online analytical processing) systems are the
techniques used in many companies to extract and analyze useful information from
very large databases for decision making.
64. What is Data Independence?
Data independence means that the application is independent of the storage
structure and access strategy of data.
65. How many types of relationship exist in database designing?
There are three major relationship models:-
One-to-one
One-to-many
Many-to-many
66. What is order by clause?
ORDER BY clause helps to sort the data in either ascending order to descending.
67. What is the use of DBCC commands?
DBCC stands for database consistency checker. We use these commands to check the
consistency of the databases, i.e., maintenance, validation task and status checks.
68. What is Collation?
Collation refers to a set of rules that determine how data is sorted and compared.
69. What is difference between DELETE & TRUNCATE commands?
Delete command removes the rows from a table based on the condition that we
provide with a WHERE clause. Truncate will actually remove all the rows from a
table and there will be no data in the table after we run the truncate command.
70. What is Hashing technique?
This is a primary file organization technique that provides very fast access to
records on certain search conditions.
71. What is a transaction?
A transaction is a logical unit of database processing that includes one or more
database access operations.
72. What are the different phases of Transaction?
Analysis phase
Redo phase
Undo phase
73. What is “transparent DBMS”?
It is one, which keeps its physical structure hidden from user.
74. What are the primitive operations common to all record management System?
Addition, deletion and modification.
75. Explain the differences between structured data and unstructured data.
Structured data are facts concerning objects and events. The most important
structured data are numeric, character, and dates. Structured data are stored in
tabular form.
Unstructured data are multimedia data such as documents, photographs, maps,
images, sound, and video clips. Unstructured data are most commonly found on
Web servers and Web-enabled databases.
76. What are the major functions of the database administrator?
Managing database structure, controlling concurrent processing, managing
processing rights and responsibilities, developing database security, providing for
database recovery, managing the DBMS and maintaining the data repository.
77. What is a dependency graph?
A dependency graph is a diagram that is used to portray the connections between
database elements.
78. Explain the difference between an exclusive lock and a shared lock?
An exclusive lock prohibits other users from reading the locked resource; a shared
lock allows other users to read the locked resource, but they cannot update it.
79. Explain the difference between an exclusive lock and a shared lock?
An exclusive lock prohibits other users from reading the locked resource; a shared
lock allows other users to read the locked resource, but they cannot update it.
80. What are the advantages of using stored procedures?
The advantages of stored procedures are (1) greater security, (2) decreased network
traffic, (3) the fact that SQL can be optimized and (4) code sharing which leads to
less work, standardized processing, and specialization among developers.
81. Explain the difference between attributes and identifiers.
Entities have attributes. Attributes are properties that describe the entity's
characteristics. Entity instances have identifiers. Identifiers are attributes that name,
or identify, entity instances.
82. What is Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), and what kind of a database is used
in an ERP application?
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is an information system used in
manufacturing companies and includes sales, inventory, production planning,
purchasing and other business functions. An ERP system typically uses a multiuser
database.
83. Describe the difference between embedded and dynamic SQL?
Embedded SQL is the process of including hard coded SQL statements. These
statements do not change unless the source code is modified. Dynamic SQL is the
 process of generating SQL on the fly.The statements generated do not have to be
the same each time.
84. Explain a join between tables
A join allows tables to be linked to other tables when a relationship between the
tables exists. The relationships are established by using a common column in the
tables and often uses the primary/foreign key relationship.
85. Describe a subquery.
A subquery is a query that is composed of two queries. The first query (inner
query) is within the WHERE clause of the other query (outer query).
86. Compare a hierarchical and network database model?
The hierarchical model is a top-down structure where each parent may have many
children but each child can have only one parent. This model supports one-to-one
and one-to-many relationships.
The network model can be much more flexible than the hierarchical model since
each parent can have multiple children but each child can also have multiple
parents. This model supports one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many
relationships.
87. Explain the difference between a dynamic and materialized view.
A dynamic view may be created every time that a specific view is requested by a
user. A materialized view is created and or updated infrequently and it must be
synchronized with its associated base table(s).
88. Explain what needs to happen to convert a relation to third normal form.
First you must verify that a relation is in both first normal form and second normal
form. If the relation is not, you must convert into second normal form. After a
relation is in second normal form, you must remove all transitive dependencies.
89. Describe the four types of indexes?
A unique primary index is unique and is used to find and store a row. A nonunique
primary index is not unique and is used to find a row but also where to store a row
(based on its unique primary index). A unique secondary index is unique for each
row and used to find table rows. A nonunique secondary index is not unique and
used to find table rows.
90. Explain minimum and maximum cardinality?
Minimum cardinality is the minimum number of instances of an entity that can be
associated with each instance of another entity. Maximum cardinality is the
maximum number of instances of an entity that can be associated with each instance
of another entity.
91. What is deadlock? How can it be avoided? How can it be resolved once it occurs?
Deadlock occurs when two transactions are each waiting on a resource that the
other transaction holds. Deadlock can be prevented by requiring transactions to
acquire all locks at the same time; once it occurs, the only way to cure it is to abort
one of the transactions and back out of partially completed work.
92. Explain what we mean by an ACID transaction.
An ACID transaction is one that is atomic, consistent, isolated, and durable.
Durable means that database changes are permanent.
Consistency can mean either statement level or transaction level consistency. With
transaction level consistency, a transaction may not see its own changes.
Atomic means it is performed as a unit.
Isolation: this property states that each transaction that is occurring is in isolation
with others i.e. a transaction which has started but not yet completed should be in
 isolation with others so that the other transaction does not get impacted with this
transaction.
93. Under what conditions indexes should be used?
Indexes can be created to enforce uniqueness, to facilitate sorting, and to enable fast
retrieval by column values. A good candidate for an index is a column that is
frequently used with equal conditions in WHERE clauses.
94. What is difference between SQL and SQL SERVER?
SQL is a language that provides an interface to RDBMS, developed by IBM. SQL
SERVER is a RDBMS just like Oracle, DB2.
95. What is Specialization?
It is the process of defining a set of subclasses of an entity type where each subclass
contain all the attributes and relationships of the parent entity and may have
additional attributes and relationships which are specific to itself.
96. What is generalization?
It is the process of finding common attributes and relations of a number of entities
and defining a common super class for them.
97. What is meant by Proactive, Retroactive and Simultaneous Update?
Proactive Update: The updates that are applied to database before it becomes
effective in real world.
Retroactive Update: The updates that are applied to database after it becomes
effective in real world.
Simultaneous Update: The updates that are applied to database at the same time
when it becomes effective in real world.
98. What is RAID Technology?
Redundant array of inexpensive (or independent) disks. The main goal of raid
technology is to even out the widely different rates of performance improvement of
disks against those in memory and microprocessor. Raid technology employs the
technique of data striping to achieve higher transfer rates.
99. What are serial, non-serial schedule?
A schedule S is serial if, for every transaction T participating in the schedule, all the
operations of T is executed consecutively in the schedule, otherwise, the schedule is
called non-serial schedule.
100. What are conflict serializable schedules?
A schedule S of n transactions is serializable if it is equivalent to some serial
schedule of the same n transactions.
101. What is a foreign key?
A key of a relation schema is called as a foreign key if it is the primary key of some
other relation to which it is related to.
102. What are the disadvantages of using a dbms?
1) High initial investments in h/w, s/w, and training.
2) Generality that a DBMS provides for defining and processing data.
3) Overhead for providing security, concurrency control, recovery, and integrity
functions.
103. What is Lossless join property?
It guarantees that the spurious tuple generation does not occur with respect to
relation schemas after decomposition.
104. What is a Phantom Deadlock?
In distributed deadlock detection, the delay in propagating local information might
 cause the deadlock detection algorithms to identify deadlocks that do not really
exist.
Such situations are called phantom deadlocks and they lead to unnecessary aborts.
105. What is a checkpoint and when does it occur?
A Checkpoint is like a snapshot of the DBMS state. By taking checkpoints, the
DBMS can reduce the amount of work to be done during restart in the event of
subsequent crashes.
106. What is schema?
The description of a data base is called the database schema, which is specified
during database design and is not expected to change frequently. A displayed
schema is called schema diagram .We call each object in the schema as schema
construct.
107. What is Correlated Subquery in DBMS?
A Subquery is also known as a nested query i.e. a query written inside some query.
When a Subquery is executed for each of the rows of the outer query then it is termed
as a Correlated Subquery.
108. Explain Entity, Entity Type, and Entity Set in DBMS?
Entity is an object, place or thing which has its independent existence in the real
world and about which data can be stored in a database. Eg: any person, book, etc.
Entity Type is a collection of the entities which have the same attributes. Eg:
STUDENT table contains rows in which each row is an entity holding attributes like
name, age, and id of the students; hence STUDENT is an Entity Type which holds
the entities having same attributes.
Entity Set is a collection of the entities of the same type. Eg: A collection of the
employees of a firm.
109. What are the different levels of abstraction in the DBMS?
There are 3 levels of data abstraction in the DBMS. They include:
Physical Level: This is the lowest level of the data abstraction which states how the
data is stored in the database.
Logical Level: This is the next level of the data abstraction which states the type of
the data and the relationship among the data that is stored in the database.
View Level: This is the highest level in the data abstraction which shows/states only
a part of the database.
110. What integrity rules exist in the DBMS?
There are 2 major integrity rules that exist in the DBMS. They are:
Entity Integrity: This states a very important rule that value of a Primary key can
never have a NULL value.
Referential Integrity: This rule is related to the Foreign Key which states that either
the value of a Foreign Key is a NULL value or it should be the primary key of any
other relation.
111. What are different types of joins in the SQL?
There are 4 types of SQL Joins:
Inner Join: This type of join is used to fetch the data among the tables which are
common in both the tables.
Left Join: This returns all the rows from the table which is on the left side of the join
but only the matching rows from the table which is on the right side of the join.
Right Join: This returns all the rows from the table which is on the right side of the
join but only the matching rows from the table which is on the left side of the join.
 Full Join: This returns the rows from all the tables on which the join condition has
put and the rows which do not match hold null values.
112. What is Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), and what kind of a database is used
in an ERP application?
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is an information system used in manufacturing
companies and includes sales, inventory, production planning, purchasing and other
business functions. An ERP system typically uses a multiuser database.