2026 Sample¶

The exam has two parts:

• Part 1 is to be completed with pen and paper.
• Part 2 should be completed on your assigned computer via Blackboard.

Part 1: Question 1 (Pen & Paper)¶

(50 marks)¶

A university wants to design a database to manage information about its academic departments, lecturers, modules, and students. The requirements are as follows:

• Each department has a department name and an office location.
• Each lecturer has a name, an email, and belongs to exactly one department.
• Each module has a unique module code, a title, and a number of credits to be awarded for that module once completed.
• Each module is coordinated by exactly one lecturer, but a lecturer may coordinate many modules.
• A module is offered by one department, and each department may offer many modules.
• Each student has a unique student ID number, a name, a date of birth, and an email address.
• A student can enrol in many modules, and a module can have many students.
• For each enrolment, the university must store the enrolment date and the student's grade.
• A lecturer may act as an academic advisor for many students, but each student has at most one academic advisor.
• Some lecturers are also Heads of Department. Each department has exactly one Head of Department, and a lecturer can head at most one department.

(a) — 30 marks¶

Draw an ER diagram that includes:

• All entities
• Primary keys
• Attributes
• Multivalued attributes
• Weak entities (if needed)
• Specialisation / generalisation
• Relationship attributes
• Cardinality and participation constraints

(b) — 20 marks¶

Map the ER diagram to relational tables, explaining each step as you go.

Part 2: Multiple Choice Questions (Computer & Blackboard)¶

Each MCQ below is worth 5 marks.

MC Question 1¶

A database administrator grants the following permissions:

GRANT SELECT, UPDATE ON Employees TO user1;
GRANT SELECT ON Employees TO user2;

Later, the administrator executes:

REVOKE SELECT ON Employees FROM user1;

Which of the following is TRUE?

MC Question 2¶

Consider the following schedule involving two transactions:

• T1: R(X), W(X)
• T2: R(X), W(X)

Schedule: R1(X), R2(X), W1(X), W2(X)

Which statement is correct?

MC Question 3¶

Which of the following scenarios BEST justifies using a document-oriented NoSQL database over a relational database?

MC Question 4¶

Given the table:

Orders(order_id, customer_id, amount)

Which query returns customers whose total order amount exceeds 1000?

MC Question 5¶

Under GDPR, which of the following is considered a lawful basis for processing personal data?

MC Question 6¶

Consider the following SQL constraint:

ALTER TABLE Employees
ADD CONSTRAINT chk_salary CHECK (salary > 0 AND salary < 100000);

Which statement is TRUE?

MC Question 7¶

A company based in Ireland operates an e-commerce platform and processes customer data (names, emails, purchase history).

Scenario:

1. Users initially give consent for data processing during account creation.
2. The company later decides to use the same data for targeted advertising and updates consent with the users.
3. A user requests erasure of their data.
4. The company deletes the user's personal data from its main database but retains it in backups and analytics datasets.

Which of the following is the MOST accurate assessment under GDPR?

MC Question 8¶

Consider two transactions operating under strict two-phase locking (Strict 2PL):

• T1: R(X), W(X), R(Y), W(Y)
• T2: R(Y), W(Y), R(X), W(X)

Execution proceeds as follows:

1. T1 acquires a shared lock on X and reads it.
2. T2 acquires a shared lock on Y and reads it.
3. T1 upgrades to an exclusive lock on X and writes it.
4. T2 upgrades to an exclusive lock on Y and writes it.
5. T1 requests a lock on Y.
6. T2 requests a lock on X.

What will happen?

MC Question 9¶

Three transactions with timestamps (lower = older):

• T1 (TS = 1) — oldest
• T2 (TS = 2)
• T3 (TS = 3) — youngest

They request locks in the following order:

1. T2 acquires a lock on resource X.
2. T3 acquires a lock on resource Y.
3. T1 requests X.
4. T2 requests Y.
5. T3 requests X.

Assume the system uses Wait-Die. Which of the following correctly describes what happens?

MC Question 10¶

The same scenario is repeated here from MC Question 9:

Three transactions with timestamps (lower = older):

• T1 (TS = 1) — oldest
• T2 (TS = 2)
• T3 (TS = 3) — youngest

They request locks in the following order:

1. T2 acquires a lock on resource X.
2. T3 acquires a lock on resource Y.
3. T1 requests X.
4. T2 requests Y.
5. T3 requests X.

Assume the system uses Wound-Wait. Which of the following correctly describes what happens?

End of Sample Exam