Instruction Cycle and Control Flow MCQs

1. What is the primary purpose of the instruction cycle?

(A) To execute a single instruction

(B) To fetch, decode, and execute instructions

(C) To manage memory allocation

(D) To handle I/O operations

2. Which of the following stages comes first in the instruction cycle?

(A) Execute

(B) Decode

(C) Fetch

(D) Store

3. What does the decode stage of the instruction cycle do?

(A) Retrieves the instruction from memory

(B) Decodes the instruction into executable commands

(C) Executes the decoded command

(D) Stores the result of the execution

4. In which stage of the instruction cycle is the Program Counter (PC) updated?

(A) Fetch

(B) Decode

(C) Execute

(D) Store

5. Which register typically holds the address of the next instruction to be executed?

(A) Accumulator

(B) Instruction Register

(C) Program Counter

(D) Stack Pointer

6. What does the execute stage of the instruction cycle involve?

(A) Fetching the instruction

(B) Decoding the instruction

(C) Performing the operation specified by the instruction

(D) Updating the Program Counter

7. Which of the following is not a part of the instruction cycle?

(A) Fetch

(B) Decode

(C) Store

(D) Interrupt

8. What happens during the ‘store’ phase of the instruction cycle?

(A) The instruction is retrieved from memory

(B) The result of the execution is saved to memory

(C) The instruction is decoded into commands

(D) The Program Counter is incremented

9. What is the primary function of the control unit in a CPU?

(A) Perform arithmetic operations

(B) Manage data storage

(C) Direct the operation of the processor

(D) Handle I/O operations

10. Loops & Control Flow

11. Which control flow statement is used to execute a block of code repeatedly based on a condition?

(A) if-else

(B) switch

(C) for loop

(D) goto

12. In a switch statement, what determines which case block will be executed?

(A) The value of the switch expression

(B) The order of the case blocks

(C) The default case

(D) The number of case blocks

13. What is the purpose of the ‘break’ statement in a switch-case construct?

(A) To exit the switch block and continue with the next statement

(B) To repeat the current case block

(C) To skip the rest of the current case block

(D) To exit the entire program

14. Which statement is used to terminate the execution of a loop prematurely?

(A) continue

(B) exit

(C) break

(D) return

15. What is the primary function of a ‘goto’ statement?

(A) To repeat a block of code

(B) To jump to a specific part of the code

(C) To conditionally execute code

(D) To handle exceptions

16. Which control flow statement executes one block if a condition is true and another if it is false?

(A) for

(B) while

(C) if-else

(D) switch

17. What happens if a ‘continue’ statement is encountered in a loop?

(A) The loop terminates immediately

(B) The current iteration is skipped and the next iteration begins

(C) The entire program terminates

(D) The loop condition is re-evaluated

18. What does a ‘return’ statement do in a function?

(A) Exits the function and optionally returns a value

(B) Continues execution of the function

(C) Terminates the entire program

(D) Jumps to a specific line of code

19. Which statement is used to handle multiple conditions in a branching statement?

(A) if-else

(B) for

(C) while

(D) switch

20. What is the purpose of the ‘default’ case in a switch statement?

(A) To handle unexpected values

(B) To repeat the current case

(C) To exit the switch block

(D) To skip the rest of the switch statement

21. What is the function of a loop’s condition?

(A) To determine the number of iterations

(B) To execute a block of code repeatedly

(C) To terminate the loop when false

(D) To initialize the loop variable