Punjab PSEB Senior Secondary NSQF IT/ITeS flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

NSQF

National Skills Qualifications Framework: a 10-level national framework that maps skill levels to qualifications, with school vocational awards typically placed at Level 4.

IT-enabled services

Business processes delivered using information technology, such as call centres, data entry, payroll processing, and medical transcription, rather than core software product development.

CPU

Central Processing Unit, the component that fetches, decodes, and executes program instructions; it contains the arithmetic logic unit, control unit, and registers.

RAM

Random Access Memory, volatile primary storage that holds programs and data currently in use; its contents are lost when power is switched off.

ROM

Read Only Memory, non-volatile primary storage holding firmware such as the boot program; normal operation reads it but does not rewrite it.

Bit and byte

A bit is one binary digit, 0 or 1; a byte is a group of 8 bits and is the standard unit for measuring storage capacity.

Hexadecimal

A base-16 number system using digits 0–9 and letters A–F, widely used to write memory addresses and colour codes compactly.

System software

Programs that manage hardware and provide a platform for applications, including the operating system, device drivers, and utility programs.

Application software

Programs written to perform user-facing tasks such as word processing, spreadsheets, image editing, or web browsing.

Firmware

Software permanently stored in hardware, such as BIOS or UEFI, that initialises the device and starts the operating system during boot.

LAN

Local Area Network: a network confined to a small area such as a room, building, or campus, usually owned by one organisation.

WAN

Wide Area Network: a network spanning large distances such as cities or countries, typically using leased lines or public infrastructure.

Topology

The physical or logical arrangement of devices in a network, for example star, bus, ring, or mesh, each with different cost and fault-tolerance trade-offs.

TCP

Transmission Control Protocol: a connection-oriented transport protocol that establishes a session, acknowledges packets, and retransmits lost data for reliability.

UDP

User Datagram Protocol: a connectionless transport protocol that sends datagrams without acknowledgement, giving lower overhead and speed but no delivery guarantee.

IP address

A unique numeric identifier for a device on a network; IPv4 uses 32 bits in dotted decimal form, while IPv6 uses 128 bits.

Router

A network device that forwards packets between different networks by examining destination IP addresses and consulting a routing table.

Switch

A network device that connects devices within one LAN and forwards frames using MAC addresses held in its forwarding table.

OSI model

A seven-layer reference model for network communication: Physical, Data Link, Network, Transport, Session, Presentation, and Application.

DNS

Domain Name System: the distributed service that translates human-readable domain names into numeric IP addresses before a connection is made.

HTTP

Hypertext Transfer Protocol: the application-layer request-response protocol used by browsers and servers to exchange web pages and resources.

URL

Uniform Resource Locator: the address of a resource on the web, comprising a scheme, host name, optional port, path, and query string.

Firewall

Hardware or software that inspects incoming and outgoing network traffic and permits or blocks it according to configured rules.

Malware

Malicious software designed to damage or gain unauthorised access, including viruses, worms, trojans, ransomware, and spyware.

Phishing

A social-engineering attack that sends fraudulent messages imitating a trusted source to trick recipients into revealing credentials or clicking malicious links.

Authentication

The process of verifying a claimed identity, typically through something known, possessed, or inherent, such as a password, token, or fingerprint.

DBMS

Database Management System: software that stores, retrieves, and manages related data in structured form while controlling access and maintaining integrity.

Primary key

A column or set of columns whose value uniquely identifies each row in a table and therefore cannot be null or duplicated.

Foreign key

A column in one table that references the primary key of another table, enforcing referential integrity between the two tables.

SQL

Structured Query Language: the standard language for defining, querying, and manipulating data in relational database systems.

Cloud computing

Delivery of computing services such as storage, servers, and software over the internet on demand, billed by usage rather than owned locally.

BPO

Business Process Outsourcing: contracting an external provider to run a business function such as customer support, payroll, or data processing.