Deck 1: Certified Professional for Software Architecture – Foundation Level

Question 1

In a customer project the architecture shall be based on components. The requirements have not been fully determined yet. Taking this constraint into account, which three properties of the components developed by you will you pay particular attention to? (Choose three.)

A) meaningful component names
B) weak coupling
C) strong cohesion
D) open for extension
E) small component size

Answer 1

strong cohesion
open for extension
small component size

Question 2

Choose the most desirable characteristics of interfaces. (Choose three.)

A) Easy to extend
B) Geared towards the capabilities of the provider
C) Clear descriptions of assertions and prerequisites
D) As few parameters as possible
E) Scalable to many consumers
F) Remotely callable
G) Hard to misuse

Answer 2

Geared towards the capabilities of the provider
Clear descriptions of assertions and prerequisites
Remotely callable

Question 3

Select the two most appropriate methods for evaluating the reliability of a software system. (Choose two.)

A) Determining the number of 'lines of code'
B) Measurement of 'Mean-Time-between-Failure'
C) Execution of performance tests
D) Determination of the cyclomatic complexity
E) Conducting an ATAM evaluation

Answer 3

Measurement of 'Mean-Time-between-Failure'
Execution of performance tests

Question 4

What role does understandability play for architecture documentation? (Choose three.)

A) It is desirable, but not essential.
B) It is less important than completeness.
C) It is an important quality characteristic.
D) It is a quality characteristic together with correctness and efficiency.
E) It is a quality characteristic together with simplicity and brevity.
F) It is a quality characteristic together with scope and completeness.

Question 5

Which two of the following requirements are examples of quality requirements? (Choose two.)

A) Up to 40,000 requests per day
B) User should be able to select the sort order freely.
C) Spelling is corrected automatically.
D) Failure rate is less than 0.1%.

Question 6

Which elements should be defined in the white-box view of a software building block 'foo'? Select the three most important elements. (Choose three.).

A) The dependencies of the internal building blocks of 'foo'
B) The legal contracts with the suppliers of the internal building blocks of 'foo'
C) The algorithms of the internal building blocks of 'foo'
D) The internal building blocks of 'foo'
E) The rationale for the decomposition of the building block
F) The sizes (in lines of code) of the internal building blocks of 'foo'

Question 7

Name the three most important fields of template-based architecture documentation. (Choose three.)

A) To describe module structures (white boxes)
B) To describe individual architectural modules and their external interfaces (black boxes)
C) To use copyright templates for a consistent description of project/system meta information within documents and source codes
D) To use a standardized document structure
E) To reuse code and test case templates

Question 8

Which of the following statements apply to design patterns? (Choose two.)

A) Design patterns are not invented but discovered.
B) Design patterns should always be described alongside the problem they are supposed to solve.
C) Design patterns are formally defined and can thus be proven to be correct.
D) The number of design patterns used is proportional to the software architecture's quality.

Question 9

You want to demonstrate to colleagues that certain building blocks are suitable for the implementation of a use-case scenario. Which of the following UML diagrams is best suited for this?

A) Use-case diagram
B) Sequence diagram
C) Activity diagram
D) Class diagram

Question 10

What are known patterns for the adaptation of interfaces? (Choose two.)

A) Bridge
B) Tower
C) Observer
D) Façade
E) Wall

Question 11

Which four of the following items can be building blocks of a software architecture? (Choose four.)

A) an algorithm
B) a component
C) a test harness
D) a class
E) a processor
F) a method/procedure/function/operation
G) a local variable
H) a package

Question 12

For which quality characteristics is the software architect responsible? Please name the two characteristics that best match the role of the software architect. (Choose two.)

A) The performance of the software
B) The technical quality of the software implementation
C) The suitability of the software design for its purpose
D) The software is free of errors

Question 13

What do you have to take into account when designing external interfaces? (Choose three.)

A) Volatility of neighbouring systems
B) Adequate usage of the broker pattern
C) Protocols enforced by neighbouring systems
D) Expected amount of parallel calls
E) Ease of implementation
F) Effect on the coupling in the building block view

Question 14

Which three artifacts does the assessment team create when conducting an ATAM evaluation? (Choose three.)

A) Architecture-specific chapters of the quality management manual
B) The concrete quality tree
C) Description of quality scenarios
D) A quality model
E) Architecture documentation
F) Selection of the quality attributes of the architectural building blocks
G) List of the architectural risks

Question 15

Which two of the following statements about quality characteristics are most accurate? (Choose two.)

A) Flexibility reduces testability
B) Increased flexibility improves robustness
C) Simplicity increases comprehensibility
D) Increased efficiency results in reduced performance

Question 16

Which of the following statements are correct? (Choose two.)

A) The push operation usually places a new element onto a stack.
B) A stack acts exactly like a queue.
C) A stack is organized according to the FIFO principle.
D) A stack usually only provides access to one element at a time.

Question 17

Which of the following principles apply to testing? (Choose two.)

A) In general, exhaustive testing is not possible.
B) Where many errors exist, more errors are usually hidden.
C) Sufficient testing will show that a program is free of errors.
D) Error-free test runs also mean: the software is usable.

Question 18

Which of the following statements regarding iterative and incremental design are correct? Please name the three statements that fit the best. (Choose three.)

A) Iterations help to deal with uncertainties.
B) The iterative approach helps to detect design problems at an earlier stage.
C) If the incremental approach is used, risks are detected at a later stage.
D) Iterative design leads to project delays.
E) If iterative design is used; the customer will be less involved.
F) If incremental design is used; key functionality is considered as early as possible.

Question 19

Which views should software architects document? Select the three most popular views.

A) Deployment view
B) Data view
C) Runtime view
D) Configuration view
E) Non-functional view
F) Link view
G) Stakeholder view
H) Building-block view
I) Interface view

Question 20

Which of the following statements are covered by the term 'coupling'? (Choose two.)

A) A building block uses an interface of another building block.
B) Two building blocks offer operations with the same name.
C) A building block only contains operations that belong together logically.
D) A building block uses internal data structures of another building block.

Question 21

Which of the following statements about (crosscutting) concepts are most appropriate? (Select four.)

A) The definition of appropriate concepts ensures the conceptual integrity of the architecture.
B) Concepts are a means to increase consistency.
C) For each quality goal there should be an explicitly documented concept.
D) Uniform exception handling is most easily achieved when architects agree with developers upon a suitable concept prior to implementation.
E) A concept might be implemented by a single building block.
F) Uniform usage of concepts reduces coupling between building blocks.
G) A concept can define constraints for the implementation of many building blocks.

Question 22

Which of the following techniques are best suited to illustrate the interaction of runtime building blocks? Select the four most suitable techniques.

A) Activity diagrams
B) Sequence diagrams
C) State diagram
D) Flowcharts
E) Class diagrams
F) Tabular description of interfaces
G) Depiction of screen flows (sequence of user interactions)
H) Numbered lists of sequential steps

Question 23

What are the four key terms in common definitions of software architecture? (Choose four.)

A) Source code
B) Building Blocks
C) Functionality
D) Relationships
E) Components
F) Requirements
G) Interfaces