ISRO SCIENTISTS/ENGINEERS (SC) COMPUTER SCIENCE CSE SYLLABUS

Theory of Computation: Regular languages and finite automata, Context free

languages and Push-down automata, Recursively enumerable sets and Turing
machines, Undecidability; NP-completeness.

Digital Logic: Logic functions, Minimization, Design and synthesis of combinational

and sequential circuits; Number representation and computer arithmetic (fixed and
floating point).

Computer Organization and Architecture: Machine instructions and addressing

modes, ALU and data-path, CPU control design, Memory interface, I/O interface
(Interrupt and DMA mode), Instruction pipelining, Cache and main memory,
Secondary storage.

Programming and Data Structures: Programming in C; Functions, Recursion,

Parameter passing, Scope, Binding; Abstract data types, Arrays, Stacks, Queues,
Linked Lists, Trees, Binary search trees, Binary heaps.

Algorithms: Analysis, Asymptotic notation, Notions of space and time complexity,

Worst and average case analysis; Design: Greedy approach, Dynamic
programming, Divide-and-conquer; Tree and graph traversals, Connected
components, Spanning trees, Shortest paths; Hashing, Sorting, Searching.

Compiler Design: Lexical analysis, Parsing, Syntax directed translation, Runtime

environments, Intermediate and target code generation, Basics of code optimization.

Operating System: Processes, Threads, Inter-process communication,

Concurrency, Synchronization, Deadlock, CPU scheduling, Memory management
and virtual memory, File systems, I/O systems, Protection and security.

Databases: ER-model, Relational model (relational algebra, tuple calculus),

Database design (integrity constraints, normal forms), Query languages (SQL), File
structures (sequential files, indexing, B and B+ trees), Transactions and concurrency
control.

Computer Networks: ISO/OSI stack, LAN technologies (Ethernet, Token ring),

Flow and error control techniques, Routing algorithms, Congestion control,
TCP/UDP and sockets, IP(v4), Application layer protocols (icmp, dns, smtp, pop, ftp,
http); Basic concepts of hubs, switches, gateways, and routers.
ISRO SYLLABUS :-
Paper : ISRO Sample Paper for CS/IT Scientific Engineers Recruitment

This Sample Paper is based on the expected syllabus for ISRO Scientist/Engineer Recruitment Exam. Candidates may get an idea about what to
read for the Computer Science / IT Stream Examination. We wish all of you a good luck for the paper.

1. Which of the following features usually applies to data in a data warehouse?

(a) Data are often deleted
(b) Most applications consists of transactions
(c) Data are rarely deleted
(d) Relatively few records are processed by applications
(e) None of these

2. Which of the following is a transaction?

(a) A group of SQL statements consisting of one read and one write operation
(b) A group of SQL statements consisting only of ready operations.
(c) A group of SQL statements defining a user-oriented task
(d) A group of SQL statements consisting only of write operations.
(e) None of these

3. There are several security devices used to stop individuals from exploiting your system. Which of
the following is used in conjunction with a firewall?
(a) Proxy server
(b) Intrusion- detection system
(c) Terminal server
(d) Web server
(e) None of these

4. The effect of the ROLLBACK command in a transaction is the following……

(a) Undo all changes to the data- base resulting from the execution of the transaction
(b) Undo the effects of the last UPDATE command
(c) Restore the content of the database to its state at the end of the previous day
(d) Make sure that all changes to the database are in effect
(e) None of these

5. A client / server network ……….

(a) has clients that provide functions such as application control and shared computation.
(b) uses client computers to provide copies of software to the server to allow server processing.
(c) provides a company with the capability to downsize from lager computer systems and move away from
legacy systems.
(d) has server computers that perform all processing, clients are’ dumb’ input/ output devices only.
(e) None of these.

6. An applet is ……. Document application program.

(a) a static
(b) a dynamic
(c) an active
(d) a passive
(e) None of these

7. The local antenna for satellite connections is called a ……..

(a) modem
(b) terminal
(c) VSAT
(d) DTA
(e) None of these
8. What are the four basis connecting hardware devices?
(a) Repeater, bridge, router and gateway
(b) Repeater, bridge, router and dell
(c) Repeater, connector, router and gateway
(d) Amplifier, bridge, router and gateway
(e) None of these

9. Which type of processing speed measurement is used primarily with supercomputers?

(a) Flops
(b) Fractions of second
(c) Gigahertz
(d) MIPS
(e) None of these

10. This type of software is designed for users who want to customize the programs they use.
(a) Shareware
(b) Open-source software
(c) Freeware
(d) Macros
(e) None of these

11. What is the term associated with the second part of an e-mail address?
(a) Local address
(b) Eight characters long
(c) User name
(d) Domain name
(e) None of these

12. A port that allows 8 bits at a time to be transmitted simultaneously is a (n) …..
(a) dedicated port
(b) parallel port
(c) SCSI port
(d) USB port
(e) None of these

13. In order for computers to communicate across a network, they must be connected through a(n)…..
(a) TCP/IP
(b) Topology
(c) Ethernet
(d) Thin client
(e) None of these
(f) C. Rangarajan

14. What is a specialized software program that allows input and output devices to communicate with
the rest of the computer system?
(a) Utility driver
(b) Utility program
(c) Data compression utility
(d) Device driver
(e) None of these

15. Single party disk relying on the disk controller for finding out which disk has failed is used by-
(a) RAID level 5
(b) RAID level 2
(c) RAID level 4
(d) RAID level 3
(e) RAID level 1

16. Which of these terms refers to the feature of an OS that allows a single computer to process the
tasks of several users at different stations, in round-robin fashion?
(a) Multiprocessing
(b) Multiprogramming
(c) Multitasking
(d) Time processing
(e) Time-sharing

17. Which of the following statements is not true about two-tier client-server database architecture?
(a) SQL statements are processed on the server
(b) SQL statements may be processed on some of the clients
(c) Business logic is mostly processed on clients
(d) Business logic may be processed on the server
(e) None of these

18. A Relational operator that yields all values from selected attributes is known as a -
(a) difference
(b) product
(c) select
(d) project
(e) join

19. Normalization is:

(a) the process of creating small stable data structures from complex groups of data when designing a
relational database
(b) a methodology for documenting database illustrating the relationship between various entities in the
database
(c) an approach to data management that stores both data and the procedures acting on the data as object that
can be automatically retrieved and shared
(d) a representation of data as they would appear to an application programmer or user
(e) a representation of data as they actually would be organized on physical storage media

20. The process of building a model that demonstrate the features of a proposed product, service or
system is called a -
(a) JAD
(b) RAD
(c) templating
(d) prototyping
(e) TAD

21. Which of the following is mandatory component of a URL?

(a) Resource Path
(b) Protocol
(c) Port Number
(d) Domain Name
(e) None of these

22. DBMS allows you to extrapolate information from your data by using a-
(a) query language
(b) table generator
(c) report generator
(d) wizard
(e) None of these

23. A subschema is -
(a) a description of the physical and logical structure of data and the relationship among the data
(b) a file that identifies the subset of data that a group of users can access
(c) a detailed description of all data contained in the database
(d) a description of the types of modifications that users can make to a database
(e) Either (c) or (d)

24. Which of the following is not a type of hub?

(a) Passive hub

(b) Inactive hub
(c) Switching hub
(d) Intelligent hub
(e) None of these

25. The ……….. lists the location of files on the disk

(a) FAT
(b) boot sector
(c) root folder
(d) data area
(e) None of these

Answers:
1. (b) 2. (a) 3. (a) 4. (a) 5. (b)
6. (b) 7. (e) 8. (a) 9. (a) 10. (a)
11. (d) 12. (b) 13. (b) 14. (d) 15. (d)
16. (e) 17. (c) 18. (d) 19. (a) 20. (d)
21. (e) 22. (a) 23. (e) 24. (b) 25. (a)

1. The root directory of disk should be placed at_____

--->at a fixed location on the system disk.
2. DNS is basically used to ____
----->i wrote --to have a hierarchical structure.
3.one more ques on DNS
4. abt TCP and UDP
5. TCP's which layer is there for the OSI's first three layers.
6. Multiprocessing models have---
  a)symmetric b)unsymmetric models c)none of the above d) both
7. BCDhave binary nos in
   a)bis  b) bytes c)nibble
8. Top-down parser ....
   a) leftmost derivation
b)rightmost derivation
c)leftmost derivation in reverse
d)rightmost derivation in reverse
9.Loop which avoids check at every iteration
  a)loop controlling b) loop jamming
10.one tree was given and some expressions were there and we have to
find the correct postfix exprn
11.abt logic gates
12.worst case of Shell sort
13.sine wave can be split into
  a)set of sine waves
  b)set of sine waves with phase zero
14.full binary tree with n vertices has how many leaf nodes
somethng like this...
15.complete graph with n vertices and somethng
16.in a cyclic graph with n vertices how many minimum edges
a)n b)n/2...

1.The minimum number of edges in a connected cyclic graph on n vertices is

 a)  n-1         b) n         c) n+1      d)none of these

2.A full binary tree with n non leaf nodes contains

 a)  n nodes   b) log n nodes  c)2n-1 nodes   d)2n nodes

3.The time complexity of shell sort

 a) O(n)       b) O(log n)     c) O(n 1.2 )   d)O(n2)

4.The time taken to insert an element after an element pointed by some pointer

 a) O(1)      b) O(log n)   c) O(n)      d) O(nlogn)

 5. what is the name given to the first generation computer?

a) Binary language   b)Machine language   c)Assembly language

 6.The root directory of a disk should be placed

a)      at a fixed address in main memory

b)      at a fixed location on disk
c)      anywhere on disk.

7.A top down parser generates

a)      right most derivation

b)      left most derivation
c)      right most derivation in reverse
d)      left most derivation in reverse

8.what is the name of the OS that reads and reacts in terms of actual time?
 a)batch system
 b)time sharing
 c)real time
9.FDDI is a
 a)ring network
 b)star network
 c)mesh network

10.Computer memory consists of

a)ROM
b)PROM
c)RAM
d)all the above
1. A full binary tree with n leaves contains?(2N-1)
2. The expression 1*2^3*4^5*6 will be evaluated as?
3. The feature in object oriented programming that follows he same operation to be carried
out differently ,depending on the object, is?
4. The microistructions stored in the control mamory of a processor have a width of 26 bits.
Each microinstructionsion. is divided into three fields: a microoperation field of 13 bits, a
next address field(x), and a MUX select field(y).There are 8 status bits in the inputs of the
MUX. How many bits are there in the X and Y fields, and what is the size of the control
memory in number of words?
5. A cpu has 24-bit instructions. A program starts at address 300(in decimal).Which one of
the following is a legal program counter (all values in decimal)?
6. Consider a disk pack with 16 surfaces,128 tracks per surface and 256 sectors per track.512
bytes of data are stores in a bit serial manner in a sector.The capacity of the disk and the
number of bits required to specify a particular in the disk are respectively.
7. Consider a pipelined processor with the following four stages
IF:Instruction Fetch
ID:Instruction Decode and Operand Fetch EX:Execute WB:Write Back
The IF,ID and WB stages take one clock cycle each to complete the operation.The ADD and
SUB instructions need 1 clock cycle and the MUL instruction need 3 clock cycles in the EX
stage.Operand forwarding is used in the pipelined processor.What is y the number of clock
cycles taken to complete the following sequence of instructions?
ADD R2,R1,R0 R2 R1+R0
MUL R4,R3,R2 R4 R3+R2
SUB R6,R5,R4 R6 R5+R4
8. The use of multiple register windows with overlap causes a reduction in the number of
memory accesses for:-
1.Function locals and parameters
2.Registers saves and restores
3.Instruction fetches
9. A processor that has carry, overflow and sign flag bits as part of its program status
word(PSW) performs addition of the following two 2’s complement numbers 0100101 and
11101001.After the execution of this addition operation, the status of the carry, overflow and
sign flags, respectively will be
10. The two numbers given below are multiplied using the Booth’s algorithm.
Multiplicand:0101 1010 1110 1110 Multiplier:0111 0111 1011 1101 How many
additions/Subtractions are required for the multiplication of the above two numbers?
11. The addition of 4-bit, two’s complement,binary numbers 1101 and 0100 results in
12. Which of the following statements about relative addressing mode is FALSE?
1.It enables reduced instruction size
2.It allows indexing of array element with same instruction
3.It enables easy relocation of data
4.It enables f asters address calculation than absolute addressing
13. Substitution of values for names(whose values are constants) is done?
14. A root alpha (symbol) of equation f(x) =0 can be computed to any degree of accuracy if a
‘good’ initial approximation x0 is chosen for which?
ISRO INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

1. Tell me any one of the life cycle model

2.Give details of the phases in the life cycle model
3.What is cost estimation,Tell me any one. I discussed about COCOMO model while he asked about this
model
They asked the formula which is related to the cost estimation.
4.What is verification and validation etc..
And Many more questions they asked.........................
Final question was what is fibonacci series and its application write on the white board.
They didn't ask any question from project however from other students they have asked question from
project.

favourite subjects ( I said DSA, C and DBMS . I didn't said OS because for OS they were asking w.r.t. Linux. In CN they
may also ask general about Network Security ,firewall, encryption etc. CA include Digital, Microprocessor etc)
they are giving everybody a question from mathematics to solve on board, mostly to find the rank of matrix, solving
linear equation (some tricky which can be answered without solving it properly) or probability.
They may give a K - Map to solve on board
In C(i told C as My favourite subject) they ask me about extern, static, linking, global variables, run time library , exit
etc.
In DSA they ask me about expression evaluation infix ,postfix, how expression is evaluated etc
solve the equation x+y=5 ; 4x+4y=12; x+2y+3Z=20 .Answer: no solution since first two are contradicting so not
possible
Some Other info about Interview

Mostly interview is on basics not deep into subject

In CS at Ahmedabad On 12 Sept only one out of 37 was asked about the project but on 13 everybody was asked
about project
They are asking some very basic questions from Digital like K-map solving , gates etc
Generally DBMS was not aske