UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS: 2011/2012
YEAR 1 EXAMINATION FOR THE BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
BIT 1207 DATABASE SYSTEMS PRINCIPLES
DATE: APRIL 2012 TIME: 2 HOURS
INSTRUCTIONS: Answer Question One and Any other Two Questions
QUESTION ONE (30 MARKS)
a) With respect to information management, compare the following concepts;
i) File system and DBMS (2Marks)
ii) Tuple and attribute (2Marks)
iii) Instance and schema (2Marks)
b) Discuss the limitations of having a database system to manage organizational data (6Marks)
c) Describe the ways in which information in a database can be manipulated (3Marks)
d) Describe any four disadvantages of the hierarchical data model (4Marks)
e) Discuss five functions of a database management system (5Marks)
f) Identify the roles of the following people
i) Database designer (2Marks)
ii) Database administrator (2Marks)
iii) Database user (2Marks)
QUESTION TWO (20 MARKS)
a) i) Describe the term “cardinality” (2Marks)
ii) With appropriate illustration, describe three ways of mapping cardinality (6Marks)
b) Discuss the following levels of the database architecture;
i) Internal level (2Marks)
ii)Conceptual level (2Marks)
c) Identify and explain any four components of the DBMS kernel (8Marks)
QUESTION THREE (20 MARKS)
a) i) Define the term “Lock-based protocol” (2Marks)
ii) Explain the two basic methods of locking a data item (4Marks)
b) Explain the meaning of the following terms;
i)Database recovery (2Marks)
ii)Database security (2Marks)
iii) Database failure (2Marks)
c) Design an ERD depicting the following entities. Assign appropriate primary and foreign keys;
STUDENT (name, date of birth, address, telephone number)
COURSE (name, capacity, fees, duration)
REGISTRATION (date) (8Marks)
QUESTION FOUR (20 MARKS)
a) i) Define the term ‘SQL’ with reference to database systems (2Marks)
ii) Distinguish between data definition and data manipulation (2Marks)
b) Discuss the anomalies that can result from bad database design (2Marks)
c) Describe the design stages that should be followed in order to achieve an effective database design
(6Marks)
d) Use the table below to answer the questions that follow;
i) Write SQL to display all the patient details (2Marks)
ii) Write SQL to display Ids, names and birth dates of all female patients (3Marks)
iii) Write a statement to insert a fifth row to the table (3Marks)
QUESTION FIVE (20 MARKS)
a) Discuss five components that can be found in the overall DBMS environment (10Marks)
b) Explain four functions of the database manager (4Marks)
c) Describe any three types of data models (6Marks)
