Many of the questions on the exam will be a drag-and-drop style, in which you have to put together small ORM samples. (All questions pertain to the Billington Pharmaceuticals case study.)
| Question 1 | You have been assigned the task of creating a conceptual model for the Billington system. You need to isolate entities in the system that will not become tables in the physical database model. Which of the following entities would you select? (Choose all that apply.) A. Employee B. Patient C. Product D. HMO E. Supplier
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| A1: | The correct answers are A and E. As stated in the case study description, employee and supplier data will be maintained from the existing system and are not within the scope of the proposed system. The Patient entity is arguably one of the focal points of the new system and, therefore, is definitely required. The Product entity is required for the Order process, and the HMO entity, although the smallest, needs to be a table in the proposed system. |
| Question 2 | You have been assigned the task of creating a conceptual model for the Billington system. You have completed the initial fact descriptions and are now in the process of determining some of the initial relationships. Which of the following fact pairs has no direct relationship between entities? A. Patient/HMO B. Doctor/Prescription C. Product/Drug D. Order Item/Packaging
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| A2: | The correct answer is C. Product information is associated with non-prescription elements that can be ordered from the Billington Web site. The insured Patient has an HMO, so a relationship is needed in that fact pair. As defined in the case study, some of the items available for ordering have specialty packaging choices and are, therefore, related. The Doctor is the one responsible for handing out Prescriptions for the medications the Patient needs, so this relationship is also necessary. |
| Question 3 | In preparing the conceptual model for the proposed Billington system, you need to determine the correlation between the Patient entity and other entities involved in the system. Which of the following entities has a direct relationship to the Patient? (Choose all that apply.) A. Order B. Order Item C. Product D. HMO E. Prescription
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| A3: | The correct answers are A, D, and E. The Patient entity has a direct relationship with the Order entity, as in Patient places Order; with the Prescription, as in Patient is given Prescription; and with the HMO, as in Patient is insured by HMO. The Order Item is of the Order, and the Product is of the Order Item, so these entities are not directly related to the Patient entity. |
| Question 4 | In preparing the conceptual model for Billington, you realize that calls from a Doctor and calls from a Patient must be handled separately. How can your model indicate this separate handling? A. A Caller type divided into subtypes B. A separate Patient-Call relationship C. A separate Doctor-Call relationship D. A composite type containing both Patient and Doctor
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| A4: | The correct answer is A. Subtypes of Caller would allow modeling separate rules and procedures for the two types of callers. A Patient-Call and a Doctor-Call relationship are already needed, so these relationships by themselves do not solve the problem. A composite type containing the Patient and the Doctor can be used to create a many-to-many relationship between Patients and their Doctors, but does not help the call-handling issue. |
| Question 5 | You are modeling the Prescription and Drug entities and need to determine the types of relationships from the Doctor and Patient to the Drugs. Which of the following do you need to model this relationship? (Choose all that apply.) A. A direct connection from the Doctor to Drug B. A direct connection from the Patient to Drug C. A direct connection from the Doctor to Prescription D. A direct connection from the Patient to Prescription E. A direct connection from the Prescription to Drug
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| A5: | The correct answers are C, D, and E. A Patient receives a Prescription that is given by the Doctor. The Doctor does not give out drugs. An argument could be made that the Patient receives drugs directly, which could very well be a variation of the model, but the correlation would then need other identifiers and extra entities. The prescription defines the medications, so the connection from the Prescription entity to the Drug entity is also a requirement. |
| Question 6 | In preparing the call portions of the conceptual model, you need to allow for the possibility of a user fee to be implemented on a per-call basis. You would like the model to show a current charge of zero per call. How would this process be modeled? A. This process cannot be modeled as it will not necessarily be in the system. B. Connect a charge value to the call with a value constraint of zero. C. Create a connection between the Order and Call entities with a value constraint of zero. D. If user fees are introduced, redesign the Call-related entities.
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| A6: | The correct answer is B. This process can certainly be modeled and is probably a good idea, as it was mentioned as a real possibility in the case study. The connection to the Order entity might be needed later, if it is built into the billing process, but would not be needed initially. Creating a simple fact that the Call has a zero charge is the easiest way to model the situation and requires the least amount of alteration if the value needs to be changed. |
| Question 7 | You are preparing the Product-related facts for the Billington system. Some of the products incur a shipping charge when ordered from the supplier, and others are absorbed by the supplier. How can you model this information? A. Create a Supplier entity and a set of value entities that have facts pertaining to the supplier-shipping procedures. B. Create a Shipping entity and a set of value entities that have facts pertaining to product shipment. C. Create a Value entity that is related to Product and draw it as an optional relationship. D. Create a Value entity that is related to Order Item and draw it as an optional relationship. E. Create a Value entity that is related to Drug and draw it as an optional relationship.
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| A7: | The correct answer is C. A new entity with related facts would be inappropriate, particularly for the supplier, as it would be redundant with another of Billington's systems. Even a separate Shipping entity is far more effort than is required. A Value entity tied to the product as an optional relationship could accommodate both shipping-charge possibilities and hold the shipping charge or a Boolean result, depending on what is needed. Attaching to the Order Item or Drug entities would be the incorrect relationship for the situation. |
| Question 8 | In modeling the Doctor-related facts, you want to include checking for doctor's specialization. There should be some method for allowing only valid entries for the doctor's specialization. How would the modeling process indicate these specializations? A. Create a separate constraint for each valid specialization. B. Create a separate value entity for each valid specialization. C. Create a separate relationship for each valid specialization. D. Use a value constraint listing the set of permitted values for the specialization.
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| A8: | The correct answer is D. The most appropriate technique for handling a situation in which any one of a set of values can be entered is using a single constraint listing all possible values. Although other modeling methods could illustrate the same information, the model would quickly become cluttered and contain too much redundant information. |
| Question 9 | You have almost finished modeling the Billington system when the CEO suggests adding a process for all orders made. How would this affect the process model? (Choose all that apply.) A. Additional facts will need to be designed. B. Additional constraints will need to be designed. C. Additional relationships will need to be designed. D. The entire conceptual model will need to be redesigned. E. No changes will be needed, as this process is already built into the system.
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| A9: | The correct answers are A, B, and C. No billing process is built into the system, as it was not required by the project's original scope. To add billing would require a lot of additional modeling, but would not require redesigning the entire model, as many elements of the model have nothing to do with a billing system. (You might add an option F: "I quit.") |
| Question 10 | You have nearly completed the conceptual model and are in the final stages of design. Which of the following procedures would likely still need to be done at this stage of the design process? A. Addition of fact information B. Addition of object relationships C. Addition of value constraints D. Addition of uniqueness constraints
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| A10: | The correct answer is C. At the beginning of the design process, you gather all fact information together and begin to lay out the facts to determine entities needed in the model. As the design progresses, you determine relationships between the entities and try to determine uniqueness for all elements. At the final stages of the design, you add value, set-comparison, subtype, and ring constraints to complete the model. |
