UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS: 2017/2018
EXAMINATION FOR THE DIPLOMA IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
DIT306 PRINCIPALS OF DATABASE DESIGN
DATE: APRIL, 2018 TIME: 1 ½ HOURS
INSTRUCTIONS: Answer any THREE questions.
QUESTION ONE (30 MARKS)
a) With respect to information management, differentiate the following concepts. (5 Marks )
(i) Database and Database Systems.
(ii) Tuple and attribute
(iii) Instance and schema. (2Marks)
b) Discuss the limitations of having a database system to manage organizational data. (5Marks)
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) Describe the term “Cardinality”. (2Marks)
ii) With appropriate illustration, describe three ways of mapping cardinality (6Marks)
b) Discuss the levels of the database architecture: (8 Marks)
c) Identify and explain any four components of the DBMS kernel. (4Marks)
QUESTION THREE (20 MARKS)
a) Explain the two basic methods of locking a data item. (4Marks)
b) Explain the following terms;
i) Database recovery (2Marks)
ii) Database security (2Marks)
iii) Database failure (2Marks)
b) Design an ERD depicting the following entities. Assign appropriate primary and foreign keys;
(8 Marks)
STUDENT (name, date of birth, address, telephone number)
COURSE (name, capacity, fees, Duration).
REGISTRATION (date).
QUESTION FOUR (20 MARKS)
a) Define the term ‘SQL’ with reference to database systems (2Marks)
b) 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 following questions ;
Patient ID NAMES DOB GENDER TELEPHONE
1001 John Njuguna 09/02/89 Male 0725052368
1002 Alice Kioko 27/05/87 Female 0987549475
1003 Beatrice Mwiko 11/12/95 Female 079383363
10004 Brenda Njeri 20/02/84 Female 99575980
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) Describe the functions of the database Manager. (4Marks)
c) Describe any three types of data Models (6Marks)
