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CS Fundamentals Interview Questions

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153 views3 pages

CS Fundamentals Interview Questions

Uploaded by

Geordie Elliot-Kerr
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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CS Fundamentals Questions

Networking

1. What is the difference between TCP and UDP?


2. What is the OSI model? Can you explain its layers?
3. How does the DNS system work?
4. What is an IP address? What is the difference between IPv4 and IPv6?
5. What is the purpose of a subnet mask?
6. What is the difference between HTTP and HTTPS?
7. What is ARP, and why is it important?
8. Explain the concept of NAT (Network Address Translation).
9. What is a firewall, and how does it work?
10. What is the difference between symmetric and asymmetric encryption?

Operating Systems

11. What are the main functions of an operating system?


12. What is the difference between a process and a thread?
13. Explain the concept of context switching.
14. What is virtual memory, and why is it important?
15. How does an operating system handle deadlocks?
16. What is a system call? Provide examples.
17. Explain the difference between preemptive and cooperative multitasking.
18. What is paging, and how is it different from segmentation?
19. How does the kernel differ from the user space in an OS?
20. What is the purpose of inter-process communication (IPC)? Provide examples.

Data Structures and Algorithms

21. What is the difference between an array and a linked list?


22. Explain the concept of a stack and its use cases.
23. What is the difference between depth-first search (DFS) and breadth-first search
(BFS)?
24. How does a hash table work? What is a hash collision?
25. What are the advantages of using a binary search tree?
26. Explain the time complexity of common sorting algorithms (e.g., QuickSort,
MergeSort).
27. What is dynamic programming? Provide an example.
28. What are heaps, and how are they used in priority queues?
29. What is the difference between a graph and a tree?
30. Explain Big-O notation and why it is important.

Databases

31. What is the difference between a relational database and a NoSQL database?
32. What is normalization, and why is it used?
33. Explain the concept of ACID properties in databases.
34. What are database indexes, and how do they improve performance?
35. What is the difference between inner join, outer join, and cross join?
36. How does a transaction work in a database?
37. What is a primary key, and how is it different from a foreign key?
38. Explain the difference between a clustered and a non-clustered index.
39. What is a deadlock in databases, and how can it be avoided?
40. How do databases ensure data integrity?

Security

41. What is public-key cryptography, and how does it work?


42. What is the difference between hashing and encryption?
43. Explain the concept of SSL/TLS.
44. What are common types of attacks (e.g., SQL injection, XSS)?
45. What is two-factor authentication, and why is it important?
46. What is the difference between symmetric and asymmetric encryption?
47. How does HTTPS secure communication over the web?
48. What is a man-in-the-middle attack, and how can it be prevented?
49. What is the principle of least privilege in security?
50. Explain the purpose of a VPN.

Computer Architecture

51. What is the difference between RAM and ROM?


52. How does a CPU execute instructions?
53. What is a cache, and how does it improve performance?
54. What is pipelining in computer architecture?
55. Explain the difference between RISC and CISC architectures.
56. What is an interrupt, and how does the CPU handle it?
57. What are the differences between 32-bit and 64-bit architectures?
58. What is the role of a bus in a computer system?
59. How does the fetch-decode-execute cycle work?
60. What is the purpose of a DMA controller?
Distributed Systems

61. What is a distributed system?


62. Explain the concept of eventual consistency.
63. What is the CAP theorem?
64. What is a load balancer, and why is it used?
65. What is the difference between horizontal and vertical scaling?
66. Explain the concept of sharding in databases.
67. What is a message queue, and how is it used in distributed systems?
68. What is the difference between synchronous and asynchronous communication?
69. How do distributed systems handle fault tolerance?
70. What are the benefits of microservices over monolithic architectures?

Miscellaneous

71. What is the difference between a compiler and an interpreter?


72. Explain the concept of garbage collection in programming languages.
73. What is the difference between multithreading and multiprocessing?
74. How does a blockchain work?
75. What is the difference between machine learning and traditional programming?
76. What are the advantages of using containers like Docker?
77. Explain the difference between REST and GraphQL.
78. What is a webhook, and how does it work?
79. How do you optimize the performance of an application?
80. What is the purpose of a CDN (Content Delivery Network)?

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