IPA FE Subject A 2026 Questions and Answers

IPA FE Subject A 2026

Questions IPA Japan published in 令和８年度基本情報技術者試験科目A 公開問題, translated into English, with IPA's answers. ITPEC is based on the same exams, so they are good practice for ITPEC too.

Question 1

The probability that the bit output for an input bit is either 0 or 1 is called a transition probability. When the transition probabilities are shown in a table, which of the following is the relationship among a, b, c, and d?

a)a + b + c + d = 1b)a + b = 1, c + d = 1c)a + c = 1, b + d = 1d)a + d = 1, b + c = 1

Question 2

Same question on ITPEC: Oct 2020 Q7

Which of the following is a description of quicksort algorithm?

a)It repeats the process of comparing and swapping each pair of adjacent elements so that smaller elements are gradually moved towards the end.b)It repeats the process of finding the minimum element of the data, followed by its removal.c)It repeats the process of inserting each element of data into the correct position of a sorted sequence.d)It repeats the process of selecting an element as a pivot and partitions the data so that smaller elements appear before the pivot, and larger elements appear afterwards.

Question 3

Which of the following is an appropriate characteristic of the GPU, which is one of the processors?

a)It functions independently of the OS and other hardware, and securely manages information such as encryption keys.b)It can perform high-speed 3D computation with a large number of floating-point arithmetic units that operate in parallel.c)It can reconfigure the logic circuits inside the semiconductor device according to the purpose.d)It can use in computation the state in which 0 and 1 are superposed by qubits.

Question 4

Which of the following is a description of PaaS as a service model of cloud computing?

a)Resources that make it possible to execute any software, including the OS and applications, are provided to the user. The user can perform limited configuration and control of the platform such as the OS.b)Middleware and other software required for the development and operation of applications are provided to the user, so the user can use them to develop and operate applications. The user cannot directly change the platform.c)The user prepares the platform such as the hardware and the OS, and the applications by themselves, and requests their operation. The user can, for example, decide the configuration of the platform, so the degree of freedom in building the environment is high.d)The user uses the provided applications as they are or customizes them, but does not need to prepare everything from the platform such as the OS to the applications by themselves. The user cannot directly change the platform.

Question 5

In a computer system that uses virtual storage, when the degree of multiprogramming was increased, page-ins and page-outs occurred frequently, and the response speed of the system slowed down sharply. What is such a phenomenon called?

a)Overlayb)Thrashingc)Memory compactiond)Roll-out

Question 6

When signals are input to A and B of the circuit in the figure, which of the following is the appropriate timing chart of the signal that is output to Y?

a)b)c)d)

Question 7

For the “Product” table that is defined by the SQL statement below and has values stored in it, which of the following SQL statements results in an execution error due to a constraint violation?

[SQL statement]

CREATE TABLE Product

(ProductCode CHAR(4) PRIMARY KEY, ProductName VARCHAR(21),

SupplierCode CHAR(4), PurchaseUnitPrice INT, StockQuantity INT)

Product

ProductCode	ProductName	SupplierCode	PurchaseUnitPrice	StockQuantity
A111	Television	S001	75,000	0
A222	Digital camera	S002	50,000	50
A333	DVD player	NULL	NULL	NULL
A444	Washing machine	S004	45,000	20

a)DELETE FROM Product WHERE SupplierCode IS NULLb)INSERT INTO Product VALUES ('A555', 'Air purifier', 'S005', 60000, 50)c)UPDATE Product SET ProductCode = 'A666' WHERE ProductCode = 'A444'd)UPDATE Product SET ProductCode = 'A777' WHERE StockQuantity >= 20

Question 8

In a wireless LAN, when radio waves of the same frequency transmitted from multiple terminals collide, the radio waves interfere with each other, so the signals may not be demodulated when they are received. Which of the following is used to avoid this problem?

a)CSMA/CAb)SSIDc)Carrier aggregationd)Tethering

Question 9

Which of the following combinations corresponds to two-factor authentication?

a)Client certificate, hardware tokenb)Vein authentication, fingerprint authenticationc)Password authentication, vein authenticationd)Password authentication, answer to a secret question

Question 10

Among the descriptions of specialized organizations concerning information security, which of the following is the most appropriate description of CSIRT?

a)An organization that handles the risks arising from vulnerabilities in the products or services that the company provides to its customersb)An organization that is responsible for security operations, such as system monitoring and log analysis, in order to detect security incidentsc)An organization that performs incident response for security incidents that have occurredd)An organization that has a special consultation desk for targeted cyberattacks, and supports the organizations that bring in consultations in reducing damage and breaking the chain of attacks

Questions 11–20

Question 11

In a certain system, the problem “maintenance is difficult because the way programs are written is not standardized” has occurred. Which of the following is the most appropriate measure for reducing this problem in future new development projects?

a)Review the coding standards, and provide education on them.b)Adopt secure programming.c)Raise the instruction coverage in unit testing.d)Have all programmers participate in project management reviews.

Question 12

Which of the following is an appropriate way of using a burndown chart?

a)With the vertical axis as the total amount of completed deliverables and the horizontal axis as time, check how the total amount of completed deliverables increases as the project progresses.b)With the vertical axis as the total number of remaining issues and the horizontal axis as time, check how the total amount of remaining issues increases and decreases as the project progresses.c)With the vertical axis as the amount of remaining work and the horizontal axis as time, check how the amount of remaining work decreases as the project progresses.d)With the vertical axis as the total person-hours and the horizontal axis as time, check how the total person-hours increase as the project progresses.

Question 13

As the progress of a system development project was delayed, an attempt was made to eliminate the delay by increasing the effort put into the activities on the critical path. What is the technique for shortening the duration applied in this case called?

a)Crashingb)Coachingc)Fast trackingd)Mentoring

Question 14

Company A operates an application system in its own data center and provides services to customers. Currently, Company A is considering migrating the execution environment of the application system to a cloud service to improve service availability. Under the conditions below, by how many percentage points does the service availability improve after the migration? Here, service availability (%) is rounded down to two decimal places.

[Conditions]•The service provision hours are the same before and after the migration, and are 5,000 hours a year, excluding the time for planned maintenance.•Before the migration, the downtime within the service provision hours is 100 hours a year.•After the migration, the downtime within the service provision hours will be 30 minutes a year.

a)0.01b)0.19c)1.40d)1.99

Question 15

When the internal audit department is instructed by management to perform a system audit of the information systems department, which of the following is an appropriate action of the system auditor?

a)Formulates an improvement plan for the improvement proposals described in the audit report, and then executes it.b)Entrusts the system audit concerned to the external contractor that developed and maintains the core system.c)Determines the objectives and scope of the system audit after fully understanding what needs management has.d)Selects persons who belong to the information systems department as audit members.

Question 16

Which of the following is an example of IT utilization by a retailer for realizing an omni-channel strategy?

a)At multiple customer contact points such as physical stores, online stores, and call centers, customer information, inventory information, and other such information are centrally managed and shared for serving customers, thereby improving customer convenience.b)Transaction information such as order placement and order receipt, shipping, billing, and payment is electronically exchanged from multiple stores via a network, thereby improving the efficiency of the order placement and order receipt operations between wholesalers and manufacturers.c)Image data of surveillance cameras installed in multiple stores is collected at the head office, and the head office grasps the situation of each store in real time, thereby improving the efficiency of store operations.d)POS data of multiple stores is collected at the head office, and the head office extracts best-selling products and analyzes the co-purchase rates of multiple products on a daily basis, thereby optimizing merchandise planning and shelf allocation planning.

Question 17

Among services A through D, which of the following has the highest member retention rate?

Here, the members subject to retention are those who remained enrolled continuously from the end of the previous month to the end of the current month, and the members who newly joined in the current month do not cancel their membership by the end of the month.

Unit: persons

Service	Members at end of previous month	New members in current month	Members at end of current month
A	1,000	500	800
B	1,000	200	800
C	1,500	500	1,100
D	1,500	1,000	1,800

a)Service Ab)Service Bc)Service Cd)Service D

Question 18

Which of the following is not appropriate as an example of AI?

a)A motor controller using PID control, which compares the controlled variable with the target value by feeding the controlled variable back to the target value side, and performs corrective actions based on the difference so that the two matchb)A robot that learns the size and shape of a room, the positions of furniture, and other such information, decides its travel route, and cleansc)A chatbot that, in place of a help desk and a call center, infers the meaning of questions in natural language and replies to themd)Software that surpasses humans by processing a large amount of statistical data, such as software that beats professional human players at board games

Question 19

Which of the following is an explanation of brainstorming?

a)A meeting method in which, in examining a certain theme, multiple members each freely put forward as many ideas as possible as they come to mind, thereby stimulating creative thinking and attempting to develop ideasb)A communication method for easing the participants’ tension, such as a simple game played before starting a training session, or small talk before getting into the main subject of a business negotiation or an interviewc)A way of thinking that uses skills and methods for organizing and analyzing information according to a set framework, to grasp complex matters clearly and to derive solutions to problemsd)A method of confirming that the meanings each party understands match, and conveying opinions and evaluations, by repeating or rephrasing points

Question 20

Company A outsourced the visualization of its own business operations to Company B, and is considering outsourcing the development of a business system to Company C by presenting to Company C the business flow diagrams delivered as the deliverables. Which of the following is an appropriate restriction that arises when Company A uses these business flow diagrams?

Here, the contract concluded for the outsourcing to Company B contains a statement that all copyrights are transferred to Company A, and contains no particular statement concerning the author’s moral rights.

a)Even if a non-disclosure agreement is concluded with Company C, the electronic data of the delivered business flow diagrams cannot be provided to Company C.b)The company name of Company B, written as the name of the creator on each page of the delivered business flow diagrams, cannot be changed to the company name of Company A for presenting the diagrams to Company C.c)The delivered business flow diagrams cannot be printed and distributed to the employees of Company A as internal materials.d)The electronic data of the delivered business flow diagrams cannot be duplicated for backup purposes and stored in cloud storage that only Company A can access.