MSCE Computer Studies study plan

Distinguish transaction processing, management information, decision support and expert systems, and attach one concrete organisational example to each

Classify at least ten attack and malware types (virus, worm, trojan, ransomware, spyware, phishing, pharming, brute force, denial of service, social engineering) by delivery vector, damage done and the single most effective countermeasure

Explain symmetric versus asymmetric encryption, hashing, digital signatures and digital certificates precisely enough to answer definition and 'which technique is used for what' questions

Map physical, logical and administrative controls (firewall, access control list, backup rotation, UPS, biometrics, staff policy) to the specific threats each one mitigates

Argue both sides of two ethical cases (software piracy and workplace monitoring) using copyright, data protection, privacy and acceptable-use principles

Produce a three-page formatted report using paragraph styles, section breaks, automatic table of contents, headers and footers, and captions

Run a mail merge from a data source into ten personalised letters, including one conditional field

Build a 20-row spreadsheet that uses relative, absolute and mixed references together with SUM, AVERAGE, COUNTIF, IF and VLOOKUP

Choose and justify the correct chart type for five given datasets, labelling axes, titles and legends properly

Diagnose and repair three deliberately broken workbooks containing a division-by-zero error, a circular reference and numbers stored as text

Design a three-table relational database with primary keys, foreign keys and at least two one-to-many relationships, and justify the design against duplication and update anomalies

Write and save six queries (simple selection, sorted selection, calculated field, parameter query, grouped totals, two-table join) and state in one sentence what each returns

Build a data-entry form with validation and a grouped report drawn from the same tables

Create an eight-slide presentation with a consistent master slide, one data chart and speaker notes, then deliver it aloud in under six minutes

Classify computers by size and purpose (supercomputer, mainframe, minicomputer, microcomputer, embedded) and by generation, naming one defining hardware technology per generation

Compare star, bus, ring and mesh topologies on cost, fault tolerance, ease of expansion and performance under load

Select appropriate transmission media (twisted pair, coaxial, fibre optic, Wi-Fi, cellular) for four stated scenarios and justify each selection on bandwidth, distance and interference

Distinguish hub, switch, router, gateway, modem, repeater and access point by function and by the layer at which each works

Explain step by step how a URL becomes a rendered page, covering DNS resolution, TCP handshake, HTTP request and response

Describe packet versus circuit switching and solve simple bandwidth and file-transfer-time calculations

Match HTTP/HTTPS, FTP, SMTP, POP3, IMAP, DNS and VoIP to the service each supports and to the port or function you would quote in an answer

Distinguish LAN, WAN, MAN, intranet, extranet and VPN, giving one realistic example of each

Trace the fetch-decode-execute cycle and state the role of the ALU, control unit, registers, program counter, accumulator and system clock

Compare cache, RAM, ROM, flash and virtual memory on speed, volatility, cost per gigabyte and typical size

Convert between clock speed and cycle time, and compute execution time from an instruction count and cycles-per-instruction figure

Classify input devices (keyboard, mouse, scanner, OMR, OCR, MICR, barcode reader, biometric reader, sensor) by the data they capture and the situation that suits each

Compare output devices (LCD, LED and OLED monitors, laser, inkjet and dot-matrix printers, plotters, projectors) on resolution, speed, running cost and use case

Compare magnetic, optical and solid-state storage on capacity, access method, volatility and durability, and convert confidently between bits, bytes, KB, MB, GB and TB

List the core functions of an operating system (process, memory, file, device, security and user-interface management) with a concrete example of each from a named system

Compare GUI with CLI and single-user with multi-user systems, and explain how an operating system handles interrupts, spooling, virtual memory and file allocation

Carry out file and directory operations from a command line (list, create, copy, rename, delete, change directory) and explain absolute versus relative pathnames

Write algorithms in both pseudocode and flowchart form for five problems, using sequence, selection and iteration appropriately

Hand-trace a loop and a nested selection to produce a dry-run table of variable values that matches the expected output

Compare compiler, interpreter and assembler, describe the edit-compile-run cycle, and classify errors as syntax, logic or runtime

Structure a solution using a module or function with parameters and a single array, and apply input validation

Convert numbers between binary, octal, decimal and hexadecimal without a calculator, completing ten mixed conversions in under fifteen minutes

Perform binary addition and subtraction including negative numbers in two's complement, and identify when an overflow occurs

Encode and decode short strings in ASCII, state why Unicode is needed, and compute file sizes for images and sound from resolution, colour depth, sample rate and bit depth

Desk-check a 20-line program containing a function, an array and validation, listing every error you find

Sit a full-length timed mock across all eight domains and write a correction rule for every question answered wrongly