CPSA-FL Practice Exam Questions with Answers ISAQB Certified Professional for Software Architecture -Foundation Level Certification

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Known patterns for the adaptation of interfaces include:A. Bridge - This design pattern is used to separate abstraction from its implementation so that both can be modified independently without affecting each other.D. Façade - This pattern provides a simplified interface to a more complex subsystem, serving as a point of entry to a larger body of code, making it easier to use.

Iterative and incremental design methods are fundamental in software development, allowing for flexibility, better risk management, and focused delivery of functional components.

• A: Iterations involve repeated cycles of design, development, and testing, which help manage and resolve uncertainties as more knowledge is gained throughout the project lifecycle.
• B: The iterative process facilitates early detection of design and integration issues, as feedback can be incorporated promptly to refine the system progressively.
• F: Incremental design focuses on delivering functional increments of the product, ensuring that key functionalities are developed and delivered in priority order, allowing for early testing and refinement.

The most accurate statements about quality characteristics are:B. Increased flexibility improves robustness - Flexibility in design allows the system to handle and recover from errors and unexpected inputs more robustly.C. Simplicity increases comprehensibility - A simpler design is easier to understand, maintain, and less prone to errors, directly impacting the comprehensibility of the software.

Documenting the right views in software architecture is crucial for addressing different stakeholder concerns and ensuring the architecture is comprehensible and manageable.

• A: Deployment view illustrates the physical deployment of software on hardware and is essential for understanding how different parts of the system are distributed across platforms and environments.
• C: Runtime view shows how various components of the system interact at runtime, which is vital for understanding system behavior and performance under different operational conditions.
• H: Building-block view (also known as the module view) describes the static organization of the software in modules or components, including their responsibilities and relationships. This view is foundational for developers and maintainers.

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To evaluate the reliability of a software system effectively, two methods stand out:B. Measurement of ‘Mean-Time-between-Failure’ (MTBF) - This is a standard measure of system reliability and is crucial for determining the average time between failures, helping to predict system reliability over time.E. Conducting an ATAM evaluation - Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method (ATAM) provides a structured approach for evaluating decisions involving high-stake tradeoffs in software architectures, particularly affecting reliability among other quality attributes.

The term 'coupling' in software architecture refers to the degree of direct knowledge that one component has about another. This can be reflected in:A. A building block uses an interface of another building block. - This represents a form of coupling where components interact through well-defined interfaces, influencing the level of dependency between them.D. A building block uses internal data structures of another building block. - This indicates a higher degree of coupling, as it involves direct knowledge of another component’s internal workings, which is generally discouraged to maintain modularity and ease of maintenance.

These answers are based on fundamental software architecture and design principles widely recognized in the field.

The statements regarding the design principle ‘information hiding’ that are true and false are as follows:

• True:
• False:

The principle of ‘information hiding’ is a fundamental concept in software engineering that promotes encapsulation and abstraction. Here’s an explanation of each statement:

• True Statements:
• False Statements:

Information hiding is crucial for maintaining a clean and modular architecture, where components can be developed, maintained, and replaced independently.

References:

• Stack Overflow discussion on Abstraction vs Information Hiding vs Encapsulation1.
• Wikipedia article on Information Hiding2.
• Kansas State University textbook excerpt on Information Hiding3.
• Techopedia definition of Information Hiding4.