Advanced System Design Fundamentals Quiz

Question 1
What is a key attribute of a scalable system architecture when handling increasing load?

(A) Dependence on a single powerful machine

(B) Reliance on monolithic architecture

(C) Ability to handle increased load by adding more nodes

(D) Vertical scaling with hardware upgrades

Question 2
In distributed databases, which consensus mechanism is most effective for achieving fault-tolerant state replication?

(A) Paxos

(B) Load balancing algorithm

(C) Two-phase commit

(D) Centralized coordination

Question 3
Which of the following trade-offs does the CAP theorem describe in a distributed system?

(A) Consistency, Alignment, Performance

(B) Consistency, Availability, Partition tolerance

(C) Consistency, Availability, Performance

(D) Concurrency, Atomicity, Partitioning

Question 4
What is the primary reason for incorporating data replication in a distributed system?

(A) To achieve higher availability and fault-tolerance

(B) To simplify consistency requirements

(C) To ensure a single point of failure

(D) To increase the complexity of data management

Question 5
In a microservices architecture, which characteristic is crucial for achieving scalability?

(A) Shared database schemas among services

(B) Loose coupling between services

(C) Monolithic deployment

(D) Tightly integrated service components

Question 6
What is a common trade-off when opting for eventual consistency in distributed databases?

(A) Minor latency improvements with sacrificing throughput

(B) Guaranteed zero latency, delayed consistency

(C) Reduced latency at the expense of immediate consistency

(D) Increased immediate data consistency with high latency

Question 7
Which approach is typically used to mitigate the issue of a single point of failure in system design?

(A) Centralizing critical services

(B) Increasing resource capacity of a single server

(C) Reducing the number of service replicas

(D) Implementing redundancy across multiple nodes

Question 8
In the context of distributed system architecture, what is the primary purpose of load balancing?

(A) Distributing security responsibilities across nodes

(B) Prioritizing specific nodes to handle all requests

(C) Increasing the number of network hops

(D) Evenly distributing workload to improve overall system responsiveness

Question 9
Which statement best describes the trade-off between consistency and performance in distributed databases?

(A) Stronger consistency always increases performance due to standardization

(B) Weaker consistency leads to more security issues

(C) Weaker consistency guarantees higher data reliability

(D) Stronger consistency may decrease performance due to synchronization overhead

Question 10
What scenario would best warrant the use of distributed caching in a scalable system?

(A) Handling a high volume of read-heavy operations while reducing database load

(B) Optimizing CPU-bound tasks

(C) Facilitating write-intensive workloads

(D) Ensuring immediate consistency for transactional updates

Question 11
When designing a scalable system that must tolerate network partitions, what is a key architectural consideration?

(A) Forcing synchronous replication across nodes

(B) Eliminating replication entirely

(C) Designing for eventual consistency to maintain availability

(D) Using strong consistency despite partition occurrence

Question 12
How does horizontal scalability differ from vertical scalability in system design?

(A) Horizontal scalability focuses on hardware improvements, while vertical scalability adds machines

(B) Horizontal scalability is costlier than vertical scalability

(C) Both horizontal and vertical scalability involve adding more features

(D) Horizontal scalability adds more machines to the system, while vertical scalability enhances the power of individual machines

Question 13
When considering data partitioning (sharding) in a distributed database, what is the main benefit?

(A) Increased data redundancy by duplicating data across shards

(B) Reduced network latency by confining data to a single server

(C) Simplified data consistency requirements by centralizing data

(D) Improved query performance and scalability by distributing data across multiple servers

Question 14
In distributed tracing for scalable microservices, what is the primary goal?

(A) To replace all logging mechanisms in the system

(B) To track and visualize requests across service boundaries for performance monitoring and debugging

(C) To redundantly store transaction logs on all services

(D) To capture user-level analytics exclusively

Question 15
Which design consideration is crucial when handling trade-offs in multi-datacenter distributed systems?

(A) Prioritizing security over all other concerns

(B) Balancing latency, consistency, and fault tolerance across geographically dispersed nodes

(C) Focusing solely on reducing latency even if it compromises consistency

(D) Ensuring that all nodes are identical in hardware

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