Unit 2: Emerging Technologies and Future of the Discipline - Practice Quiz

FSC101M — Programme Orientation-I 60 Questions
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1 Which industrial revolution is primarily associated with the use of steam power and mechanization?

Evolution of Technology: Industry 1.0 to Industry 5.0 Easy
A. Industry 3.0
B. Industry 1.0
C. Industry 2.0
D. Industry 4.0

2 Industry 5.0 is best described by which of the following focuses?

Evolution of Technology: Industry 1.0 to Industry 5.0 Easy
A. Introduction of steam engines
B. Human-machine collaboration and personalization
C. Mass production using assembly lines
D. Basic use of electricity

3 What does Digital Transformation primarily refer to?

Digital Transformation Easy
A. Storing files on paper backups
B. Converting analog signals to digital only
C. Replacing all employees with robots
D. Integrating digital technology into all areas of a business

4 How many Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted by the United Nations in 2015?

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Easy
A. 17
B. 25
C. 10
D. 8

5 Machine Learning is best defined as a subset of AI that enables systems to:

Emerging Technologies: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Easy
A. Store large files efficiently
B. Only follow fixed rules written by humans
C. Connect devices to the internet
D. Learn from data without explicit programming

6 What does IoT stand for?

Internet of Things (IoT) Easy
A. Internet of Technology
B. Integration of Tools
C. Internet of Things
D. Interface of Terminals

7 A blockchain is best described as a:

Blockchain Easy
A. Type of computer virus
B. Physical chain of hardware devices
C. Distributed and immutable digital ledger
D. Centralized single database server

8 The Metaverse is best understood as:

Metaverse Easy
A. A new programming language
B. A shared immersive virtual environment
C. A physical data center
D. A type of computer processor

9 Compared to 4G, one major advantage of 5G technology is:

5G and Beyond Easy
A. Only works for voice calls
B. No need for any network towers
C. Lower speed but higher cost
D. Higher speed and lower latency

10 Edge Computing mainly aims to process data:

Edge Computing Easy
A. Only in a distant central cloud
B. Closer to the source of data
C. Inside printed documents
D. Manually by human operators

11 A Digital Twin is best defined as:

Digital Twins Easy
A. An identical twin of a person
B. A duplicate email account
C. A virtual model of a physical object or system
D. A backup copy of a hard drive

12 In manufacturing, industrial automation primarily helps to:

Robotics and Industrial Automation Easy
A. Increase manual labor requirements
B. Slow down the production process
C. Perform repetitive tasks with machines
D. Eliminate the need for electricity

13 What distinguishes an intelligent sensor from a basic sensor?

Intelligent Sensors Easy
A. It can process data and make decisions
B. It requires no power to work
C. It can only measure temperature
D. It cannot connect to any device

14 Hardware security is mainly concerned with protecting:

Hardware Security Easy
A. Physical devices and their embedded components
B. Social media accounts
C. Printed instruction manuals
D. Only software applications

15 Medical Informatics combines healthcare with which field?

Medical Informatics Easy
A. Agriculture
B. Fashion design
C. Information technology
D. Automobile engineering

16 Which of the following is an example of a clean energy technology?

Clean Energy Technologies Easy
A. Solar power
B. Diesel generators
C. Gasoline engines
D. Coal burning

17 Semiconductors are most commonly made from which material?

Chip Design and Semiconductor Manufacturing Easy
A. Rubber
B. Glass
C. Silicon
D. Wood

18 Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) primarily aim to:

Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Easy
A. Replace all roads with railways
B. Increase traffic congestion
C. Build more parking garages only
D. Improve safety and efficiency of transport

19 The World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Report mainly provides insights about:

Future Workforce: World Economic Forum Future Jobs Report Easy
A. Rules for playing sports
B. Recipes for cooking meals
C. Trends in jobs and skills for the future
D. Instructions for repairing cars

20 Which of the following is considered an important skill for future careers?

Skills required for future careers Easy
A. Critical thinking and problem solving
B. Memorizing without understanding
C. Avoiding all new technology
D. Refusing to learn new tools

21 A factory introduces collaborative robots (cobots) that work safely alongside humans, emphasizing personalization and human-centric production. Which industrial revolution best characterizes this approach?

Evolution of Technology: Industry 1.0 to Industry 5.0 Medium
A. Industry 4.0
B. Industry 2.0
C. Industry 3.0
D. Industry 5.0

22 Which sequence correctly matches the driving technology to its industrial revolution?

Evolution of Technology: Industry 1.0 to Industry 5.0 Medium
A. Steam → Electricity → Electronics/IT → Cyber-Physical Systems
B. Electronics → Steam → Electricity → Cyber-Physical Systems
C. Electricity → Steam → Cyber-Physical Systems → Electronics
D. Cyber-Physical Systems → Electronics → Electricity → Steam

23 A retail company shifts from manual record-keeping to a cloud-based system that uses customer data analytics to personalize offers. This change is best described as:

Digital Transformation Medium
A. Digital transformation
B. Digitization only
C. Legacy migration
D. Data warehousing

24 A startup develops low-cost solar lanterns for off-grid villages. Which SDG does this most directly support?

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Medium
A. SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy
B. SDG 14: Life Below Water
C. SDG 16: Peace and Justice
D. SDG 4: Quality Education

25 A model is trained on labeled emails to classify them as spam or not spam. Which type of machine learning is being used?

Emerging Technologies: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Medium
A. Supervised learning
B. Semi-structured learning
C. Unsupervised learning
D. Reinforcement learning

26 An AI model performs perfectly on training data but poorly on new data. This problem is called:

Emerging Technologies: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Medium
A. Normalization
B. Overfitting
C. Underfitting
D. Regularization

27 A smart home thermostat measures temperature, sends data to the cloud, and adjusts heating automatically. Which IoT layer is responsible for collecting the temperature data?

Internet of Things (IoT) Medium
A. Application layer
B. Business layer
C. Network layer
D. Perception (sensing) layer

28 In a blockchain, each block typically contains the hash of the previous block. What is the main purpose of this design?

Blockchain Medium
A. To encrypt user identities
B. To speed up transactions
C. To reduce storage size
D. To ensure tamper-evidence and integrity

29 Which consensus mechanism relies on validators staking cryptocurrency rather than solving computational puzzles?

Blockchain Medium
A. Proof of Burn
B. Proof of Work
C. Proof of Stake
D. Proof of Authority

30 A user attends a virtual conference using a VR headset, interacting with 3D avatars in a persistent shared space. Which core feature of the metaverse does 'persistence' refer to?

Metaverse Medium
A. The environment continues to exist even after users log off
B. The system encrypts all user data
C. The graphics render at high frame rates
D. The avatars move faster than real time

31 A remote surgery application requires ultra-reliable communication with delays under 1 millisecond. Which 5G capability is most critical here?

5G and Beyond Medium
A. Massive Machine-Type Communications (mMTC)
B. Wide Area Coverage
C. Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communications (URLLC)
D. Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB)

32 A self-driving car processes sensor data locally instead of sending everything to a distant cloud server. What is the primary advantage of this edge computing approach?

Edge Computing Medium
A. Simpler software design
B. Higher storage capacity
C. Lower device cost
D. Reduced latency for real-time decisions

33 A manufacturer creates a real-time virtual replica of a jet engine that updates as the physical engine operates, enabling predictive maintenance. This is an example of:

Digital Twins Medium
A. A digital twin
B. A data warehouse
C. A simulation model
D. A CAD drawing

34 In industrial automation, a PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) is primarily used to:

Robotics and Industrial Automation Medium
A. Encrypt network traffic
B. Render 3D graphics
C. Control machinery and automate processes
D. Store large customer databases

35 What distinguishes an intelligent (smart) sensor from a conventional sensor?

Intelligent Sensors Medium
A. It is always wireless
B. It has onboard processing and can perform local computations
C. It only measures temperature
D. It requires no power source

36 A malicious modification inserted into an integrated circuit during manufacturing to cause failure or leak data is called a:

Hardware Security Medium
A. Hardware Trojan
B. SQL injection
C. Firewall breach
D. Buffer overflow

37 A hospital adopts a system to store, retrieve, and share patient records digitally across departments. This system is best known as:

Medical Informatics Medium
A. Electronic Health Record (EHR)
B. Content Management System (CMS)
C. Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
D. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

38 Which technology is used to store excess solar energy generated during the day for use at night?

Clean Energy Technologies Medium
A. Photovoltaic panels
B. Battery energy storage systems
C. Wind turbines
D. Smart meters

39 In semiconductor manufacturing, photolithography is primarily used to:

Chip Design and Semiconductor Manufacturing Medium
A. Test the finished chip's speed
B. Transfer circuit patterns onto the silicon wafer
C. Cool the wafer during operation
D. Package the chip in plastic

40 Vehicles communicating with traffic signals to optimize flow and reduce congestion is an example of which ITS communication type?

Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Medium
A. V2V (Vehicle-to-Vehicle)
B. V2C (Vehicle-to-Cloud)
C. V2I (Vehicle-to-Infrastructure)
D. V2P (Vehicle-to-Pedestrian)

41 A manufacturing firm claims it has achieved 'Industry 5.0' maturity. Which of the following observations would most strongly validate this claim rather than Industry 4.0?

Evolution of Technology: Industry 1.0 to Industry 5.0 Hard
A. IoT sensors feed a centralized cloud analytics platform for predictive maintenance
B. Digital twins simulate the entire production line before physical deployment
C. Autonomous cyber-physical systems optimize throughput with minimal human oversight
D. Cobots are deployed to augment human creativity while prioritizing worker well-being and sustainability

42 An enterprise digitizes its paper forms into PDFs and stores them in the cloud, but processes remain unchanged. Why does this NOT constitute genuine digital transformation?

Digital Transformation Hard
A. It only achieves digitization/digitalization without reimagining business models or value delivery
B. It fails to use blockchain for immutability of records
C. It does not deploy AI to auto-classify the documents
D. It lacks a 5G network to accelerate file transfers

43 A rural micro-grid project uses AI to balance solar supply with demand, creating local technician jobs and reducing diesel use. Which combination of SDGs does it MOST directly advance?

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Hard
A. SDG 14 (Life Below Water), SDG 15 (Life on Land), and SDG 16 (Peace)
B. SDG 7 (Affordable Clean Energy), SDG 8 (Decent Work), and SDG 13 (Climate Action)
C. SDG 1 (No Poverty), SDG 2 (Zero Hunger), and SDG 3 (Good Health)
D. SDG 4 (Quality Education), SDG 5 (Gender Equality), and SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities)

44 A deep model achieves 99% training accuracy but 62% test accuracy. Adding more layers worsens the gap. Which intervention is MOST likely to address the root cause?

Emerging Technologies: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Hard
A. Remove the validation set to allow training on all available data
B. Apply regularization such as dropout and increase training data via augmentation
C. Add more hidden layers to increase representational capacity
D. Increase the learning rate substantially to escape local minima

45 In a large-scale IoT deployment with thousands of battery-powered sensors reporting infrequently, which protocol/architecture choice best balances power efficiency and scalability?

Internet of Things (IoT) Hard
A. Persistent WebSocket connections maintained continuously to a server
B. SOAP web services with XML payloads over cellular 4G
C. MQTT with QoS 0 publish over a low-power WAN (e.g., LoRaWAN)
D. HTTP/1.1 REST polling every second over Wi-Fi

46 A consortium wants a permissioned blockchain where a few known, semi-trusted organizations validate transactions and Byzantine fault tolerance is required. Which consensus mechanism is MOST appropriate?

Blockchain Hard
A. Longest-chain Nakamoto consensus
B. Proof of Stake with public token economics
C. Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT)
D. Proof of Work (PoW)

47 Which technical challenge is the PRIMARY bottleneck for achieving convincing, motion-sickness-free immersion in a shared VR metaverse?

Metaverse Hard
A. Storing large 3D asset files in cloud object storage
B. Achieving ultra-low motion-to-photon latency (typically under ~20 ms)
C. Rendering avatars using a consistent color palette
D. Supporting multiple spoken languages in voice chat

48 An autonomous factory requires ultra-reliable communication with end-to-end latency under 1 ms for real-time control. Which 5G service category and enabling technique apply?

5G and Beyond Hard
A. mMTC delivered via narrowband IoT scheduling
B. Best-effort broadband via dynamic spectrum sharing
C. URLLC delivered via network slicing and edge computing
D. eMBB delivered via massive carrier aggregation

49 A video-analytics system must react within 30 ms and operates in areas with intermittent connectivity. Why is edge computing preferred over pure cloud processing here?

Edge Computing Hard
A. It permanently stores all raw video with better durability than the cloud
B. It performs inference locally, reducing latency and dependence on continuous backhaul
C. It offers unlimited compute exceeding any datacenter
D. It eliminates the need for any model retraining over time

50 What most fundamentally distinguishes a true digital twin from a conventional high-fidelity simulation model?

Digital Twins Hard
A. A live, bidirectional data link continuously synchronizes the model with its physical counterpart
B. It is built once and never updated after deployment
C. It is rendered in 3D with photorealistic textures
D. It runs on a supercomputer rather than a workstation

51 A 6-DOF robotic arm must move its end-effector to a specified Cartesian pose. Computing the required joint angles from that target pose is an instance of solving which problem?

Robotics and Industrial Automation Hard
A. Forward kinematics
B. Trajectory smoothing
C. Dynamic torque balancing
D. Inverse kinematics

52 An 'intelligent' (smart) sensor differs from a conventional transducer principally because it:

Intelligent Sensors Hard
A. Uses a larger analog voltage range for its raw signal
B. Requires an external ADC and manual calibration for every reading
C. Integrates on-board processing for signal conditioning, self-calibration, and digital output
D. Transmits only unprocessed raw analog values to a remote controller

53 A Physically Unclonable Function (PUF) is valued in hardware security primarily because it:

Hardware Security Hard
A. Provides unlimited tamper-proof persistent storage on-chip
B. Derives a device-unique key from uncontrollable manufacturing variations, avoiding stored secrets
C. Encrypts firmware using a globally shared symmetric key
D. Runs a software antivirus routine at every boot

54 In clinical decision support, why is a diagnostic model's high accuracy potentially misleading for a rare disease with 1% prevalence?

Medical Informatics Hard
A. Prevalence has no effect on any performance metric
B. Accuracy cannot be computed when classes are imbalanced
C. High accuracy always guarantees high recall for the minority class
D. A model predicting 'no disease' every time scores ~99% accuracy yet is clinically useless, so sensitivity/specificity matter more

55 A solar farm sized for peak midday output faces the 'duck curve' problem on the grid. Which strategy most directly mitigates the steep evening ramp it causes?

Clean Energy Technologies Hard
A. Pairing generation with battery energy storage to shift surplus midday energy to evening demand
B. Increasing the number of solar panels to raise midday peak output
C. Curtailing solar generation whenever the sun is brightest
D. Shutting down all thermal plants during daylight hours permanently

56 As transistor nodes shrink below ~7 nm, why has Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography become essential?

Chip Design and Semiconductor Manufacturing Hard
A. Its ~13.5 nm wavelength patterns features finer than earlier 193 nm sources can resolve without complex multi-patterning
B. It allows wafers to be processed at room pressure in open air
C. It eliminates the need for photoresist and masks entirely
D. It replaces silicon with graphene as the substrate material

57 For cooperative collision avoidance, connected vehicles exchange V2V messages. Which requirement is MOST critical for these safety messages?

Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Hard
A. Low-latency, authenticated broadcast so messages are timely and trustworthy
B. Compatibility with legacy dial-up modem speeds
C. Long-term archival storage of every broadcasted message
D. Maximum video resolution for in-cabin entertainment streams

58 The WEF Future of Jobs Report frames labor disruption largely in terms of a 'churn'. What does this concept most accurately capture?

Future Workforce: World Economic Forum Future Jobs Report Hard
A. A permanent net decline in total employment across all sectors
B. Simultaneous displacement of some roles and creation of new ones, requiring large-scale reskilling
C. A one-time shift of workers from agriculture to manufacturing
D. The complete replacement of human labor by automation within a decade

59 When a software professional discovers a safety-critical defect their employer wishes to conceal, codes of ethics such as those of IEEE/ACM most directly require them to:

Professional Society Perspectives Hard
A. Defer entirely to management to protect the company's reputation
B. Take no action unless a customer files a formal complaint
C. Delete records of the defect to avoid liability exposure
D. Prioritize public safety and disclose the risk through appropriate channels

60 Given rapid technological churn, why do employers increasingly prioritize 'meta-skills' like learning agility over mastery of a specific current tool?

Skills required for future careers Hard
A. Meta-skills are cheaper to certify than technical skills
B. Specific tools never change once a worker has learned them
C. Tool-specific knowledge depreciates quickly, so adaptability sustains long-term employability across shifting technologies
D. Soft skills fully replace the need for any technical competence