Ch 10 Review

Multiple Choice

Identify the letter of the choice that best completes the statement or answers the question.

1. In most organizations, __________ IT department effort goes into supporting existing systems and making them more valuable to users.

a.	no	c.	more than half of all
b.	less than half of all	d.	all

2. A main objective of a help desk is to __________.

a.	show people how to use system resources more effectively
b.	provide answers to technical or operational questions
c.	make users more productive by teaching them how to meet their own information needs
d.	all of the above

3. Perfective maintenance __________.

a.	adds enhancements to an operational system and makes the system easier to use
b.	diagnoses and corrects errors in an operational system
c.	involves changing an operational system to make it more efficient, reliable, or maintainable
d.	requires analysis of areas where trouble is likely to occur in order to avoid problems

4. Perfective maintenance usually is cost-effective and needed __________ the system’s operational life.

a.	early in	c.	late in
b.	during the middle of	d.	all of the above

5. Possible disadvantages of rotating IT staff from maintenance to new systems groups include all of the following except __________.

a.	analysts learn only one skill and the organization is less versatile
b.	overhead costs increase when people move from one job to another
c.	systems analysts have less opportunity to become skilled at any one job
d.	some analysts must spend a substantial amount of time in a job that is less desirable to them personally

6. The __________ is responsible for assigning maintenance tasks to individuals or to a maintenance team.

a.	user	c.	systems review committee
b.	programmer	d.	system administrator

7. In a typical system, the initial version of the system is 1.0, and the release that includes the first set of maintenance changes is version __________.

a.	1.0	c.	2.0
b.	1.1	d.	2.1

8. The release methodology offers all of the following advantages except __________.

a.	all changes are tested together before a new system version is released
b.	costs are reduced because only one set of system tests is needed
c.	documentation changes are coordinated and become effective simultaneously
d.	new features or upgrades are available more often

9. The __________ documents a system at the end of the design phase, identifies any changes since the beginning of the project, and includes testing and verification of all system requirements and features.

a.	functional baseline	c.	allocated baseline
b.	operational baseline	d.	product baseline

10. The __________ describes the system at the beginning of system operation and includes the results of performance and acceptance tests for the operational system.

a.	functional baseline	c.	allocated baseline
b.	operational baseline	d.	product baseline

11. Response time includes __________.

a.	the time necessary to transmit or deliver a request to the system
b.	the time that the system needs to process a request
c.	the time it takes to transmit or deliver a result back to the user
d.	all of the above

12. __________ also can be used to measure the quality of IT support or services by measuring the time from a user request for help to the resolution of the problem.

a.	Bandwidth	c.	Throughput
b.	Turnaround time	d.	Response time

13. When planning capacity, detailed information is needed about __________.

a.	the number of transactions and the number of queries
b.	the daily, weekly, or monthly transaction patterns
c.	the number, type, and size of all generated reports
d.	all of the above

14. Indications that a system has reached the end of its economically useful life include all of the following except __________.

a.	adaptive and corrective maintenance is increasing rapidly
b.	operational costs and execution times are decreasing rapidly

True/False

Indicate whether the sentence or statement is true or false.

15. Successful, robust systems often need the most support because users want to learn the features, try all the capabilities, and discover how the system can help them perform their business functions.

16. In most firms, newly hired employees are trained by IT staff members, rather than user departments.

17. A help desk replaces traditional IT maintenance and support activities.

18. In addition to functioning as a valuable link between IT staff and users, a help desk is a central contact point for all IT maintenance activities.

19. The systems operation and support phase is an important component of TCO (total cost of ownership) because ongoing maintenance expenses can determine the economic life of a system.

20. Although the procedures for corrective maintenance and adaptive maintenance are alike, minor corrective maintenance requires more IT department resources than minor adaptive maintenance.

21. Requests for corrective and adaptive maintenance normally come from the IT department, while users usually initiate perfective maintenance.

22. Perfective maintenance can improve system reliability.

23. Two techniques that can be used in perfective maintenance are reverse engineering and reengineering.

24. Programs that need a large number of maintenance changes usually are poor candidates for reengineering.

25. An advantage of dividing systems analysts and programmers into separate maintenance and new systems groups is that the maintenance group develops strong support skills.

26. All analysts feel that maintenance work is more attractive than developing a new system, which they see as boring and routine.

27. Many newly hired and recently promoted IT staff members sometimes are assigned to maintenance projects because their managers believe that maintenance work offers the best training experience.

28. If a maintenance request involves a severe problem, a system administrator either accepts or rejects the request or postpones action pending further study.

29. With a release methodology, even when changes would improve system efficiency or user productivity, the potential savings must wait until the next release date, which might increase operational costs.

30. Systems analysts use baselines as yardsticks to document features and performance during the systems development process.

31. Response time is unaffected by the system design, capabilities, and processing methods.

32. Of all performance measurements, response time is the one that users ignore and complain about least.

33. User satisfaction seldom affects the life span of a system.

34. All negative feedback should be investigated and documented, because it can be the first signal of system obsolescence.

35. The main objective of capacity planning is to ensure that the system meets all future demands and provides effective support for business operations.

36. In addition to CASE tools that include system evaluation and maintenance features, systems analysts can use spreadsheet and presentation software to calculate trends, perform what-if analyses, and create attractive charts and graphs to display results.