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ENCT 301Bachelor in Computer Engineering · Semester 54 Papers Available

Database Management System

Past examination question papers and complete curriculum syllabus for Database Management System (ENCT 301), Bachelor in Computer Engineering Semester 5 under Institute of Engineering (IOE), Tribhuvan University.

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Most Frequently Asked Questions

Top recurring IOE board exam questions for Database Management System with verified mark schemes, formula notation, and recurrence frequency.

Showing 30 of 30 top repeated questions

Introduction

4 Questions
#1Asked in 7 Exam Sessions[6 Marks]Introduction
Explain the Three-Schema Architecture (Internal/Physical, Conceptual, External/View levels) of DBMS. Define Data Independence and differentiate between Logical Data Independence and Physical Data Independence with examples.
Appeared in:2082 Kartik2081 Chaitra2080 Chaitra2079 Chaitra2078 Chaitra2076 Baisakh2074 Ashwin
#2Repeated 5 Times[6 Marks]Introduction
Differentiate between Centralized and Distributed Database Systems. Explain data fragmentation (Horizontal, Vertical, and Mixed fragmentation) and data replication schemes.
Appeared in:2082 Kartik2081 Ashwin2079 Chaitra2078 Chaitra2076 Baisakh
#3Repeated 5 Times[6 Marks]Introduction
Explain Data Warehouse architecture and its key characteristics: subject-oriented, integrated, time-variant, and non-volatile. Differentiate between OLTP (Online Transaction Processing) and OLAP (Online Analytical Processing).
Appeared in:2082 Kartik2081 Ashwin2080 Chaitra2078 Chaitra2076 Bhadra
#4Repeated 4 Times[8 Marks]Introduction
What is NoSQL Database? Compare Relational DBMS and NoSQL (Document, Key-Value, Columnar, Graph) database models with respect to schema flexibility, horizontal scalability, and ACID vs BASE consistency properties.
Appeared in:2083 Chaitra2082 Kartik2081 Ashwin2080 Ashwin

Data Models

3 Questions
#1Asked in 8 Exam Sessions[10 Marks]Data Models
Design an Entity-Relationship (ER) diagram for a Hospital Management System (or University / E-Commerce system) with given requirements. Identify strong and weak entity sets, primary keys, composite and multivalued attributes, cardinality ratios (1:1, 1:N, M:N), and participation constraints. Convert the ER diagram into relational schemas.
Appeared in:2082 Kartik2081 Ashwin2081 Chaitra2080 Chaitra2079 Chaitra2078 Chaitra2076 Baisakh2076 Bhadra
#2Repeated 6 Times[4 Marks]Data Models
Define and differentiate between Super Key, Candidate Key, Primary Key, Alternate Key, and Foreign Key with an illustrative schema. What is a surrogate key?
Appeared in:2082 Kartik2081 Chaitra2080 Chaitra2079 Chaitra2076 Baisakh2073 Chaitra
#3Repeated 4 Times[6 Marks]Data Models
Explain Generalization, Specialization, and Aggregation in Extended Entity-Relationship (EER) modeling. Differentiate between Disjoint vs Overlapping and Total vs Partial specialization constraints.
Appeared in:2081 Ashwin2079 Chaitra2076 Chaitra2071 Chaitra

Relational Query Languages

4 Questions
#1Asked in 8 Exam Sessions[8 Marks]Relational Query Languages
Consider the relational schema: Student(sid, name, age, major, dept_id), Course(cid, title, credits, dept_id), Enrollment(sid, cid, semester, year, grade), Professor(pid, name, salary, dept_id). Write relational algebra expressions for: (a) Find sid and name of students enrolled in 'Database Systems', (b) List cid and title of courses with credits > 4 in 'Computer Science', (c) Increase salary of professors in 'Mathematics' by 15%.
Appeared in:2082 Kartik2081 Ashwin2081 Chaitra2080 Chaitra2079 Chaitra2078 Chaitra2076 Baisakh2076 Bhadra
#2Asked in 8 Exam Sessions[8 Marks]Relational Query Languages
Given the relational schemas: Employee(empid, name, address, title, deptid), Project(pid, pname, budget, location), Works_On(empid, pid, responsibility, duration), Payment(title, salary). Write SQL queries to: (a) Create the tables with primary and foreign key constraints, (b) Find employees working on 'ICT' project earning > 20K, (c) Count projects running > 2 years, (d) Update employee salaries based on salary slabs.
Appeared in:2082 Kartik2081 Ashwin2081 Chaitra2080 Chaitra2079 Chaitra2078 Chaitra2076 Baisakh2074 Ashwin
#3Asked in 7 Exam Sessions[6 Marks]Relational Query Languages
Explain Referential Integrity constraints in relational databases. What are the different possibilities and actions (RESTRICT, CASCADE, SET NULL, SET DEFAULT) on foreign keys when an update or delete violation occurs?
Appeared in:2082 Kartik2081 Ashwin2081 Chaitra2079 Chaitra2078 Chaitra2076 Bhadra2073 Chaitra
#4Repeated 4 Times[6 Marks]Relational Query Languages
What are Views in SQL? Explain the concept of Updatable Views and conditions under which a view cannot be updated. Explain View Materialization and View Maintenance strategies.
Appeared in:2082 Kartik2081 Ashwin2078 Kartik2075 Chaitra

Database Constraints and Normalization

3 Questions
#1Asked in 8 Exam Sessions[10 Marks]Database Constraints and Normalization
Define Functional Dependency and Attribute Closure ($X^+$). Given relation schema $R(A, B, C, D, E)$ with functional dependencies $F = \{A \to B, BC \to D, E \to C, D \to A\}$, find all candidate keys of $R$. Determine whether the decomposition of $R$ into $R_1(A, B, C)$ and $R_2(C, D, E)$ is lossless-join and dependency-preserving. Differentiate 3NF and BCNF.
Appeared in:2082 Kartik2081 Ashwin2081 Chaitra2080 Chaitra2079 Chaitra2078 Chaitra2076 Baisakh2075 Bhadra
#2Repeated 4 Times[8 Marks]Database Constraints and Normalization
Differentiate between Lossless Join Decomposition and Dependency Preserving Decomposition. Given relation schema $R(A, B, C, D)$ and FDs $A \to B, B \to C, C \to D, D \to A$, test if decomposition into $R_1(A, B), R_2(B, C), R_3(C, D)$ is lossless and dependency preserving.
Appeared in:2081 Ashwin2080 Ashwin2078 Bhadra2074 Chaitra
#3Repeated 4 Times[6 Marks]Database Constraints and Normalization
What are Multivalued Dependencies (MVD) and Join Dependencies? Define Fourth Normal Form (4NF) and Fifth Normal Form (5NF / Project-Join Normal Form) with illustrative counterexamples of redundancy.
Appeared in:2080 Ashwin2078 Bhadra2075 Chaitra2072 Chaitra

Query Processing and Optimization

2 Questions
#1Asked in 7 Exam Sessions[8 Marks]Query Processing and Optimization
What are the different steps involved in query processing? Explain how an SQL query is translated into relational algebra and an initial query evaluation tree. Explain query optimization approaches using equivalence rules and cost estimation.
Appeared in:2082 Kartik2081 Ashwin2081 Chaitra2080 Chaitra2079 Chaitra2078 Chaitra2076 Bhadra
#2Repeated 4 Times[8 Marks]Query Processing and Optimization
What are Heuristic Optimization techniques for relational algebra queries? Explain the push-down selection ($\sigma$) and projection ($\pi$) rules to minimize intermediate relation sizes with an annotated query tree.
Appeared in:2083 Chaitra2080 Ashwin2078 Bhadra2076 Chaitra

File Structure and Hashing

5 Questions
#1Asked in 7 Exam Sessions[8 Marks]File Structure and Hashing
What is indexing in databases? Differentiate between Primary Index, Clustering Index, and Secondary Index, and compare Dense vs Sparse indices. Explain the structure of B+ Trees and why B+ Trees are preferred over binary search trees for disk storage.
Appeared in:2082 Kartik2081 Ashwin2081 Chaitra2080 Chaitra2079 Chaitra2078 Chaitra2076 Baisakh
#2Repeated 6 Times[6 Marks]File Structure and Hashing
What is the purpose of using RAID? Compare RAID Level 0 (Striping), RAID Level 1 (Mirroring), RAID Level 5 (Distributed Parity), and RAID Level 10 (Striped Mirrors) in terms of storage efficiency, performance, and fault tolerance.
Appeared in:2081 Ashwin2080 Chaitra2079 Chaitra2078 Chaitra2076 Bhadra2074 Ashwin
#3Repeated 4 Times[8 Marks]File Structure and Hashing
Explain B+ Tree Indexing. Show how B+ tree insertion and node splitting algorithms operate. Construct a B+ tree of order $p = 4$ for inserting keys: 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80. Why is B+ tree preferred over B-tree for database index files?
Appeared in:2082 Kartik2080 Ashwin2078 Kartik2075 Chaitra
#4Repeated 4 Times[8 Marks]File Structure and Hashing
Explain Static Hashing and Dynamic Hashing. Discuss Extendible Hashing with bucket address table, global directory depth ($d$), and local bucket depth ($d_i$) during bucket splitting and directory doubling.
Appeared in:2081 Ashwin2079 Chaitra2076 Ashwin2073 Chaitra
#5Repeated 4 Times[6 Marks]File Structure and Hashing
Explain Dense Index versus Sparse Index, and Clustered versus Non-Clustered Indexing. When is a sparse index preferred over a dense index on a primary key file?
Appeared in:2083 Chaitra2081 Ashwin2077 Magh2074 Chaitra

Transaction Processing and Concurrency Control

6 Questions
#1Asked in 8 Exam Sessions[6 Marks]Transaction Processing and Concurrency Control
Explain ACID properties (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability) of database transactions with concrete examples. Draw the transaction lifecycle state transition diagram (Active, Partially Committed, Committed, Failed, Aborted).
Appeared in:2082 Kartik2081 Ashwin2081 Chaitra2080 Chaitra2079 Chaitra2078 Chaitra2076 Baisakh2075 Bhadra
#2Asked in 8 Exam Sessions[8 Marks]Transaction Processing and Concurrency Control
Explain the Two-Phase Locking (2PL) protocol: Basic 2PL, Strict 2PL, and Rigorous 2PL. Prove how 2PL guarantees conflict serializability. What are the deadlock prevention schemes: Wait-Die scheme and Wound-Wait scheme based on transaction timestamps?
Appeared in:2082 Kartik2081 Ashwin2081 Chaitra2080 Chaitra2079 Chaitra2078 Chaitra2076 Bhadra2074 Ashwin
#3Repeated 6 Times[6 Marks]Transaction Processing and Concurrency Control
Define Serializability. Differentiate between Conflict Serializability and View Serializability. Construct the precedence graph (serialization graph) for a given concurrent transaction schedule and determine if it is conflict serializable.
Appeared in:2081 Ashwin2081 Chaitra2080 Chaitra2078 Chaitra2076 Baisakh2075 Bhadra
#4Repeated 4 Times[8 Marks]Transaction Processing and Concurrency Control
Define Deadlock in DBMS. Explain Deadlock Detection using Wait-For Graph (WFG) and recovery mechanisms (selection of a victim, rollback, starvation). Compare Deadlock Prevention schemes: Wait-Die vs Wound-Wait.
Appeared in:2082 Kartik2081 Ashwin2079 Chaitra2076 Chaitra
#5Repeated 4 Times[6 Marks]Transaction Processing and Concurrency Control
Explain Thomas' Write Rule and Timestamp-Based Concurrency Control protocol. How does it guarantee conflict serializability and freedom from deadlock?
Appeared in:2082 Kartik2079 Chaitra2077 Magh2074 Chaitra
#6Repeated 4 Times[8 Marks]Transaction Processing and Concurrency Control
Explain Granularity of Data Items and Multiple Granularity Locking (MGL) protocol. Describe intention lock modes (IS, IX, SIX) and provide the lock compatibility matrix in a hierarchical database lock tree.
Appeared in:2082 Kartik2079 Chaitra2075 Ashwin2073 Chaitra

Crash Recovery

3 Questions
#1Asked in 8 Exam Sessions[8 Marks]Crash Recovery
Explain Log-Based Recovery techniques: Immediate Database Modification vs Deferred Database Modification. What is checkpointing in database recovery? Describe how the recovery manager uses checkpoints and log records to execute UNDO and REDO operations after a system crash.
Appeared in:2082 Kartik2081 Ashwin2081 Chaitra2080 Chaitra2079 Chaitra2078 Chaitra2076 Baisakh2073 Chaitra
#2Repeated 4 Times[6 Marks]Crash Recovery
Explain Shadow Paging recovery technique and compare it with Log-Based Recovery in terms of commit overhead, garbage collection, and checkpointing.
Appeared in:2080 Ashwin2077 Magh2075 Chaitra2072 Chaitra
#3Repeated 4 Times[6 Marks]Crash Recovery
Explain the Checkpoint mechanism in database crash recovery. How does the recovery manager use Fuzzy Checkpointing or Checkpointing with active transaction lists to minimize recovery time?
Appeared in:2082 Kartik2080 Ashwin2076 Ashwin2073 Chaitra

Curriculum Syllabus & Course Topics

Sourced from TU curriculum portal
Full Syllabus (PDF)Micro Syllabus (PDF)
Chapter-wise Units & Micro-Syllabus Topics (9 Units)

  1. 1. Introduction

    • 1.1Application and evolution of database
    • 1.2Data abstraction (Physical, logical, and view level) and data independence
    • 1.3Schema and instances

  2. 2. Data Models

    • 2.1Introduction to data models (Entity-relationship, relational, object model, hierarchical, network, graph data models)
    • 2.2E-R model 2.2.1 Entities and entity sets 2.2.2 Attributes and keys 2.2.3 Strong and weak entity sets 2.2.4 Relationship and relationship sets (Mapping cardinalities) 2.2.5 Specialization, generalization and aggregation
    • 2.3Relational model 2.3.1 Concept of relational model, key constraints 2.3.2 Converting ER model into relational model

  3. 3. Relational Query Languages

    • 3.1Relational algebra
    • 3.2Concept of DDL, DML and DCL
    • 3.3Overview of the SQL query language-DDL and DML queries
    • 3.4Set operations
    • 3.5Aggregate functions – GROUP BY – HAVING
    • 3.6Joins and types of joins
    • 3.7Nested sub queries
    • 3.8Database modification (Insert, update, delete)
    • 3.9Views
    • 3.10Triggers and stored procedures
    • 3.11Privilege and roles management – GRANT and REVOKE statements

  4. 4. Database Constraints and Normalization

    • 4.1Integrity constraints and domain constraints
    • 4.2Assertions
    • 4.3Functional dependencies
    • 4.4Different normal forms (1NF, 2NF, 3NF, BCNF)

  5. 5. Query Processing and Optimization

    • 5.1Query processing, optimization and evaluation
    • 5.2Transformation of relational expressions
    • 5.3Techniques of implementing query optimization - Cost based optimization and heuristic optimization
    • 5.4Query evaluation - Materialization and pipelining
    • 5.5Denormalization for performance
    • 5.6Materialized view
    • 5.7Performance tuning

  6. 6. File Structure and Hashing

    • 6.1Disks and storage
    • 6.2Records organizations
    • 6.3Ordered indices
    • 6.4B+ tree index
    • 6.5Hashing concepts - Static and dynamic hashing

  7. 7. Transaction Processing and Concurrency Control

    • 7.1Transaction and transaction model - State diagram
    • 7.2ACID properties
    • 7.3Concurrent execution of transactions
    • 7.4Serializability (Conflict and view serializability)
    • 7.5Lock based protocols
    • 7.6Deadlock handling and prevention
    • 7.7Multiple granularity

  8. 8. Crash Recovery

    • 8.1Failure classification
    • 8.2Recovery and atomicity
    • 8.3Log-based recovery
    • 8.4Shadow paging
    • 8.5High availability using remote backup systems

  9. 9. Advanced Database Concepts

    • 9.1Concept of object-oriented databases
    • 9.2Distributed database model
    • 9.3Concept of data warehousing and online analytical processing
    • 9.4Basic concepts of NoSQL and big data

Examination Scheme & Marks Distribution

Evaluation Structure

  • Final Board Theory Exam: 60 Marks (Pass mark: 24)
  • Internal Assessment: 40 Marks (Pass mark: 16)
  • Practical / Lab Exam: 25 or 50 Marks (Continuous lab evaluation + viva, where applicable)

* This is the general current IOE 60/40 scheme; verify course-specific details in the syllabus above.

Exam Preparation Guidelines

  • Review the 4 available past examination papers to identify recurring patterns, core problem types, and chapter weightage.
  • Practice writing clean algorithms and code implementations, tracing dry runs with sample inputs, and explaining complexity trade-offs.
  • Structure answers with labeled diagrams, concise bullet points, and highlight final answers in numerical solutions.

Frequently Asked Questions (Database Management System)

Q: How can I download Database Management System past question papers?

You can preview or download the Database Management System question papers (PDF) directly using the built-in viewer on this page with zero redirects or paywalls.

Q: What is the pass mark for Database Management System?

The general current scheme is a 60-mark final theory exam and a 40-mark internal assessment, with pass marks of 24 and 16. Verify the course-specific syllabus above.

Q: Where can I find the complete syllabus for this subject?

The available chapter-wise syllabus and topic breakdown is indexed in the Syllabus section above, with links to the curriculum PDF source.

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