Engineer Computer System study plan

Draw the fetch-decode-execute cycle and trace one instruction through it, labeling PC, IR, MAR, MDR, and ALU roles

Compare von Neumann and Harvard architectures and explain where each bottleneck appears in practice

Diagram a memory hierarchy from registers to disk and compute average access time for a two-level cache given hit rates and latencies

Explain pipelining hazards (data, control, structural) and describe one mitigation for each

Summarize interrupt handling and direct memory access flow in your own words

Map the OSI and TCP/IP layers and place at least two protocols at each layer

Compute subnet boundaries, host ranges, and broadcast addresses for CIDR blocks by hand

Trace a TCP three-way handshake and connection teardown, naming the flags and states involved

Distinguish symmetric and asymmetric cryptography and identify where each fits in TLS

Classify common attacks (spoofing, MITM, injection, DoS) by the layer or control they defeat

Implement array-based stack, queue, and singly linked list operations from scratch without reference

Compare time and space complexity of searching and sorting algorithms and justify Big-O bounds

Build a binary search tree and a hash table with collision handling, then reason about worst-case behavior

Traverse a graph using BFS and DFS and state when each is preferred

Analyze five short code snippets and state their asymptotic complexity with justification

Describe process states and the transitions between them, including context switching

Compare scheduling policies (FCFS, SJF, round robin, priority) and compute waiting times for a sample workload

Explain virtual memory, paging, page faults, and one replacement policy with a trace example

Distinguish deadlock prevention, avoidance, and detection, and apply Banker's algorithm to a small case

Outline file system structure and the roles of linker, loader, and compiler in program execution

Convert between binary, octal, decimal, and hexadecimal and perform two's complement arithmetic with overflow detection

Compute results of AND, OR, XOR, and NOT on bit patterns and simplify a Boolean expression using Karnaugh maps

Build truth tables for half and full adders and explain how flip-flops store state

Write and debug a small program using functions, loops, and error handling, then refactor it for readability

Apply a software development lifecycle model and describe unit versus integration testing with examples

Model a small domain as normalized tables up to third normal form and justify each decomposition

Write SQL queries using joins, grouping, subqueries, and aggregation against a sample schema

Explain transactions, ACID properties, and isolation levels with a concrete anomaly example

Distinguish primary, foreign, and candidate keys and describe indexing trade-offs

Compare relational and NoSQL data models and state selection criteria

Define availability, reliability, and scalability and compute uptime from an availability percentage

Estimate system throughput and latency using Little's Law on a worked example

Identify single points of failure in a described architecture and propose redundancy fixes

Compare load balancing, caching, and replication strategies by cost and benefit

Draft a capacity plan for a simple service given peak request rate and per-request cost

Summarize professional codes of ethics and apply one to a short conflict-of-interest scenario

Identify relevant standards and licensing obligations for software engineers in a given case

Revisit the two heaviest domains and re-solve five previously missed questions from weeks 1 and 2

Complete a timed 60-question mixed mock exam covering all nine domains

Review every missed mock question and write a one-line cause for each error