First of all, a number of old tests with answers have been provided to help you study. When you look at these old tests, be sure to check if the topic that a particular question addresses is included in the list of topics below. Do not panic when you see a question that doesn't make sense or if you think it pertains to an earlier test.
The following is a table of the topics you will be responsible for on Test 3. Only the topics listed below will be on the test.
| Topic | Reading |
| Introduction to memory and terminology | Sections 12.1 through 12.3 and 12.5 Note: Make sure you understand the concepts of memory space and chip select design. Be able to compare and contrast DRAM and SRAM as far as their characteristics and applications. |
| Memory hierarchy | Section 13.1 |
| Hard drives | Sections 13.2 and 13.3 |
| RAM caches | Section 13.4 (Note: Tests before Spring 2005 used the direct mapping algorithm. We will be using the fully associative mapping algorithm.) |
| Introduction to processor architecture | Sections 15.1 through 15.5 |
| Pipelined architectures | Sections 15.8 |
| Interrupts and DMA | Sections 15.9.3 and 15.9.4 |
| Bitwise operations | Section 9.1 |
| Parity | Section 9.3 |
| Checksums | Section 9.4 Note: We were not able to get too deep into this topic. Just be sure you can say in general what a checksum is. |
| Cyclic Redundancy Check | Section 9.5 Note: We were not able to get too deep into this topic. Just be sure you can answer questions like:
|
| Hamming Codes | Section 9.6 Note: Only test 3 from Fall 2007 has questions on Hamming codes. Be able to correct errors in Venn diagrams such as those shown in Figure 9-13 of the textbook. Also, last fall's test does not refer to the overall parity bit used to check for double errors. Make sure you know how this works. |
| Serial protocols | Chapter 14 |
Created by David Tarnoff for use by his sections of CSCI 2150.