UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS: 2017/2018
EXAMINATION FOR THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY/ BUSINESS IT/ APPLIED COMPUTING
BIT 1207A/BBIT 107/BAC 1207: DATABASE SYSTEMS PRINCIPLES
FULLTIME/ PART TIME/DISTANCE LEARNING
DATE: AUGUST 2018 TIME: 2 HOURS
Instructions
o Answer question ONE and any other TWO.
o Question One carry 30 marks, others 20 marks each.
QUESTION ONE. (COMPULSORY)
(a) Describe Primary and Foreign Keys in RELATIONAL databases (4 Marks)
(b) Discuss the five dis-advantages of DBMS (5 Marks)
(c) 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)
(d) There are three default database schemas that found in SQL namely information-schema,
MySQL and Test. Discuss each showing its role in DBMS. (6 Marks)
(e) Discuss three important database security features. (3 Marks)
QUESTION TWO
(a) Below is a list of potential entities for a School database;
– Employee
– Pupil
– Class
Draw an ERD diagram showing all possible attributes together with PK and FK.
(10 Marks)
(b) (i) What is data integrity (2 Marks)
(ii) What are constraints? Discuss three benefits of constraints (4 Marks)
(c) What is a Relational Database? Give two examples. (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 statement to create the above table: STUDENT (4 Marks)
ii. Write SQL statement to insert data new record number 5. Use your own data
(4 Marks)
iii. Write SQL statement to change ‘KILONZO’ to ‘KIOKO’ in record 1.
(4 Marks)
iv. Write SQL statement to list all details for those doing BSC-IT (4 Marks)
QUESTION FOUR
(a) Discuss normalization. Show why it is important in database design and demonstrate how it is
done. Include UNF, 1NF, 2NF and 3NF (10 Marks)
(b) Discuss, with the help of a diagrams, the database life cycle. (10 Marks)
QUESTION FIVE
(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)
