Exams for CSU430 Database Design - Fall 2007

Version of December 4th, 2007

Final Exam topics posted here.

Slides on indexing added - see links below

QUIZ ON CHAPTERS 2 AND 3, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4th

Because of the complexity of the material in these chapters, this quiz will be simple and straightforward. It will be a closed-book, closed-notes test. However, each of the questions will be identical to an exercise that has an answer at the end of your textbook. The specific exercises you'll need to know are listed below. Along with each answer, you are required to write out a sentence or two explaining why the answer is the correct one, why it works. This is to make sure that your answer is based on more than rote memorization.

Questions from Chapter 2 will be drawn from:
2.1 a, c
2.4 a, c, e, g
2.5 a, c, e, g, m

Questions from Chapter 3 will be drawn from:
3.1 a, c, e, g, i, k, s
3.2 a, c
3.4 a, c

Slides on indexing - PDFs with two slides per page

• This short sequence of slides is fairly good.
• For this longer set, limit your study to slides 1 through 27.

THE MIDTERM EXAM, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1st

The Midterm will be a closed-book, closed-notes test. The major topics to be covered, with notes for each, are listed below. I will hand out a copy of the CAP database to each of you to use with your SQL query questions. The most important strategies to follow in studying for this exam are to write out queries, draw E-R diagrams and tables, and do B-tree inserts. You will be far better off doing this than only reading the book.

• Chapter 2: You should understand why tables are called relations, what attributes and domains are. More importantly, you need to be able to identify and describe candidate keys, given an example such as 2.4.1 on page 38. There will be no questions on relational algebra.


• Chapter 3: All your SQL statements must end with a semicolon - that's the rule. You should be able to write out a simple create table statement, including specifying the primary key. The SQL questions will closely mirror the examples in the chapter as well as exercises that have answers in the back of the book. You'll need to know how to use distinct and qualified names such as orders.cid. There will be no questions involving subqueries or computations such as x.qty*p.price. There will be no questions based on the material on Sec. 3.4 through to the end of the chapter.


• Chapter 6: You need to be able to produce E-R diagrams containing both entities and relationships. You must be able to translate these correctly into tables. You need to understand cardinality, 1-1, N-1, and N-N relationships. To help with the cardinality notation, I've created the diagram below that I put on the board at one point (note that this is an N-1 relationship):
  
  You should be able to explain the basics of insert, delete, and update anomalies, when given an example table. You do not need to know about normal forms or functional dependencies.


• Chapter 8: You should be able to explain the basic difference between balanced and unbalanced trees and why they are so important for accessing disk-based data. You must be able to draw the growth of a B-tree just like Fig. 8.12 on page 491, but with a sequence of key inserts that I give you.

That's it for the Midterm material!