IT/ITeS Fundamentals and Digital Literacy
This foundation domain tests vocabulary and units: whether you can separate IT (hardware, software, networking products) from ITeS (business processes delivered using IT), and whether you can handle storage units, file formats and India's digital-public-service tools confidently.
Core rules
- Data = raw facts; information = processed data with meaning; knowledge = information applied to a decision.
- IPO cycle: input → process → output, with storage running in parallel.
- 1 bit = one 0 or 1; 8 bits = 1 byte; 1 KB = 1024 bytes, 1 MB = 1024 KB, 1 GB = 1024 MB, 1 TB = 1024 GB.
- Mb (megabit) measures network speed, MB (megabyte) measures file size. Since 1 byte = 8 bits, 100 Mbps ≈ 12.5 MBps.
- ITeS includes BPO (voice and non-voice), KPO, LPO, medical transcription, e-publishing, GIS and animation.
- Digital literacy = finding, evaluating, creating and communicating information with digital devices, plus safe and ethical use.
- Indian examples: DigiLocker (document wallet), UMANG (umbrella government-services app), e-District (district-level service delivery, widely used in Assam), DBT.
Worked example
A file is 2 GB. How many megabytes? 2 × 1024 = 2048 MB. The distractor 2000 MB comes from using 1000 instead of 1024. Reason: exam convention uses binary prefixes, where each step multiplies by 1024, not 1000.
Traps that cost marks
- Writing 1 KB = 1000 bytes when the paper follows 1024.
- Mixing MB and Mb in download-time questions (a 100 MB file on an 8 Mbps line takes about 100 seconds, not 12.5).
- Calling a BPO a core IT industry - it is ITeS.
- Treating data and information as synonyms.