Question 1

A decision support system (DSS):

Accepted Answer

A)  speeds up and simplifies the acquisition of information. 
B)  helps replace managerial decision making in a company. 
C)  is designed to help managers deal with specific kinds of problems. 
D)  is a hybrid of an executive information system and an intranet.

Question 2

Innove Tech is a technological firm that wants to build a global service delivery system. It has consulted a larger firm, Ziff Corp., to obtain the proven technology required to establish this system. In the context of the costs of useful information, Innove Tech has incurred _____.

Accepted Answer

A)  processing cost 
B)  retrieval cost 
C)  acquisition cost 
D)  storage cost

Question 3

TimTam Steel, a steel manufacturing company, recently adopted a new supply chain management system. By virtue of the new system, the company is able to acquire raw materials from suppliers in a shorter period of time than its competitors. The supply chain management system may become outdated in the near future; however, it has presently drastically reduced costs associated with material procurement for TimTam Steel. In the given scenario, TimTam Steel has achieved _____.

Accepted Answer

A)  first-mover advantage 
B)  competitive inertia 
C)  vertical integration 
D)  quality assurance

Question 4

Which of the following is one of the three critical questions that a firm needs to address to sustain a competitive advantage through information technology?

Accepted Answer

A)  Is the information technology simple enough for the firm's workers to adapt to it? 
B)  Is it easy to integrate the new information technology with the technology already being used by the firm? 
C)  Is it difficult for another company to create or buy the information technology used by the firm? 
D)  Is the company using ethical procedures to implement the information technology?

Question 5

In the context of unsupervised data mining, association patterns help identify database elements that are different.

Accepted Answer

A) True 
 B)False

Question 6

Fuine Corp., a multinational corporation, has spent $1 billion on a new data center that allows the firm to manage and transform raw data into useful information at a very fast speed. This enables the smooth functioning of the firm's operations. In this case, the cost that Fuine Corp. has incurred is an example of _____.

Accepted Answer

A)  processing cost 
B)  retrieval cost 
C)  acquisition cost 
D)  communication cost

Question 7

Soundwave Communication Services has processed and archived a large amount of data on its servers. However, due to a technical fault in its servers,it was unable to access the information. It had to spend a large sum of money to regain access to the information. In this scenario, the cost borne by Soundwave Communication Services is an example of _____.

Accepted Answer

A)  acquisition cost 
B)  processing cost 
C)  storage cost 
D)  retrieval cost

Question 8

Which of the following statements defines communication cost?

Accepted Answer

A)  It is the cost of obtaining data that an organization does not have. 
B)  It is the cost of transforming raw data into meaningful information. 
C)  It is the cost of transmitting information from one place to another. 
D)  It is the cost of physically or electronically archiving information.

Question 9

Allied Corp., a multinational corporation, has spent $500 million on a new data center that allows the firm to transform raw data into useful information at a very high speed. This enables the smooth functioning of the firm's operations. In this case, the cost that Allied Corp. has incurred is an example of _____.

Accepted Answer

A)  retrieval cost 
B)  processing cost 
C)  acquisition cost 
D)  communication cost

Question 10

In the context of capturing information, _____ represent numerical data by varying the thickness and pattern ofvertical lines.

Accepted Answer

A)  radio frequency identification tags 
B)  bar codes 
C)  Morse codes 
D)  optical character recognition tags

Question 11

Which of the following is a web-based tool that provides safe off-site access to data and programs?

Accepted Answer

A)  A decision support system 
B)  Electronic data interchange 
C)  Secure sockets layer encryption 
D)  An executive information system

Question 12

A(n) _____ allows companies to exchange information and conduct transactions by purposely providing outsiders with direct, password-protected, web browser-based access to authorized parts of a company's information system.

Accepted Answer

A)  extranet 
B)  corporate portal 
C)  executive information system 
D)  intraweb

Question 13

Jack found an old photograph of his family. He wanted to upload the picture as a digital image on a social networking website. In this scenario, which of the following can help Jack convert the photograph into a digital image?

Accepted Answer

A)  A bar coding device 
B)  A digital printing software 
C)  A radio frequency identification tag 
D)  An electronic scanner

Question 14

_____ can be used to convert digitized documents into ASCII(American Standard Code for Information Interchange) text that can be searched, read, and edited with standard word processing, email, desktop publishing, database management, and spreadsheet software.

Accepted Answer

A)  Proximity cards 
B)  Radio frequency analog software 
C)  Optical character recognition software 
D)  Neural machine translation technology

Question 15

Sumptuous Supermarket has large amounts of data about its customers. To understand customer buying behavior, the company uses a process that automatically discovers connections in the collected data. Through this process, the company learns that people who buy carbonated drinks, typically also buy a pack of salted snacks. As a result, the manager of the supermarket places carbonated drinks near the shelf with chips and pretzels. In this scenario, Sumptuous Supermarket has most likely used _____.

Accepted Answer

A)  data integration 
B)  data mining 
C)  bar coding 
D)  radio frequency tagging

Question 16

Alex Timbers, a wood supplier, receives an order of 10 wooden logs from a furniture manufacturing company. The client brief mentioned that the logs should be made of teak wood and be identically sized. After receiving the consignment, the quality specialist of the furniture manufacturing company observed that the logs were too big to be used for building furniture. In this scenario, it is likely that the information provided by the furniture manufacturing company to Alex Timbers was _____.

Accepted Answer

A)  untimely 
B)  irrelevant 
C)  inaccurate 
D)  incomplete

Question 17

Which of the following statements is true of affinity patterns?

Accepted Answer

A)  They help identify database elements that are different. 
B)  They occur when two or more database elements tend to occur together in a significant way. 
C)  They can solely be identified through supervised data mining. 
D)  They occur when three or more database elements occur together in a significant pattern.

Question 18

Smooth Tide, a surfboard manufacturer, recently received an order to manufacture 30 identical surfboards made of aluminum alloy. During the course of the project, Smooth Tide received a brief to make 14 of the surfboards using aluminum alloy and the rest using carbon fiber. Although the brief from the client was sent before Smooth Tides could start working on the project, the delivery was made after a two week delay. Since Smooth Tide had almost finished the production of the base of the surfboards using aluminum alloy, modifying the order was not feasible. The reason behind this problem is the _____ information provided by the client to Smooth Tide.

Accepted Answer

A)  untimely 
B)  irrelevant 
C)  inestimable 
D)  incomplete

Question 19

_____ is the prediction that about every two years, computer processing power would double and its cost would drop by 50 percent.

Accepted Answer

A)  Moore's law 
B)  Amdahl's law 
C)  Metcalfe's law 
D)  Haitz's law

Question 20

Chenrezic Music Stores, a chain of stores selling musical instruments, is trying to improve its customer service. While examining its checkout data, it learned that people who buy guitar covers also buy guitar straps and vice versa. In this scenario, the use of data mining to find better ways to improve customer service has also led to the discovery of a(n) _____.

Accepted Answer

A)  affinity pattern 
B)  sequential pattern 
C)  data cluster pattern 
D)  extrapolative pattern

Exam 17: Managing Information

A decision support system (DSS) :