UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS: 2014/2015
ORDINARY EXAMINATION FOR THE BACHELOR OF SCIENCE
IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY/ BUSINESS INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY
BIT 1207 BBIT 202 PRINCIPLES OF DATABASE DESIGN
DATE DECEMBER 2014 TIME: 2 HOURS
INSTRUCTIONS: Answer Question ONE and any other TWO
QUESTION ONE. (COMPULSORY)
(a) Describe any four disadvantages of the file-based systems (4 Marks)
(b) Discuss the five components of the database management system (5 Marks)
(c) Identify the roles of the following people
(i) Database designer (1 Mark)
(ii) Database administrator (1 Mark)
(iii) Database user (1 mark)
(d) With respect to information management, compare the following concepts;
(i) Instance and schema (4 Marks)
(ii) Tuple and attribute (4 Marks)
(iii) File system and DBMS (4 Marks)
(e) There are three default database schemas that found in SQL namely informationschema, mysql and test. Discuss each showing its role in DBMS. (6 Marks)
QUESTION TWO
(a) Below is a list of potential entities for a hotel database;
– Student
– Lecturer
– Courses
Draw an ERD diagram showing all possible attributes together with PK and FK.
(10 Marks)
(b) (i) What is data integrity (2 Marks)
(ii) Discuss four important database security features (4 Marks)
(iii) What are constraints? Discuss three benefits of constraints (4 Marks)
QUESTION THREE
a) i) Define the term ‘SQL’ with reference to database systems (2 Marks)
ii) Distinguish between data definition and data manipulation (2 Marks)
b) Use the table (STUDENT) below to answer the questions that follow;
(i) Write SQL command to create the above table: STUDENT (4 Marks)
(ii) Write another SQL command to insert row 5that table. Use your own data.
(4 Marks)
(iii) Write an SQL Command to list all students doing BSC-IT (4
Marks)
(iv)Write an SQL to replace surname KILONZO to KIOKO for STU-ID ST-001.
(4 Marks)
QUESTION FOUR
(a) Discuss three levels of database design. (6 Marks)
(b) Write short notes on the following topics: (8 Marks)
(i) Data warehouse
(ii) Data mining
(iii) Client/Server database
(iv) Web database
(c) Discuss three dependencies’ used during normalization (6 Marks)
QUESTION FIVE
(a) Discuss normalization. Show why its is important in database design and demonstrate
how it is done. Include UNF, 1NF, 2NF and 3NF (10 Marks)
(b) Discuss the database life cycle. (10 Marks)
