ITPEC IP April 2025 Question 10
ITPEC IP April 2025 — Question 10 of 100
Read, then Decode — the processor first fetches the instruction and then interprets it.
The program counter identifies the main-memory address of the next instruction. The processor reads that instruction from memory, advances the program counter, decodes the fetched instruction to determine the required operation, and then executes it. Therefore A is Read and B is Decode.
Answer (b)
Why not others:
- (a) reverses fetch and decode; an instruction cannot be decoded before it is read
- (c) substitutes Write for Decode even though the processor must interpret the instruction before execution
- (d) begins with Write, but the instruction cycle fetches from memory at this point
Key rule: The basic instruction cycle is fetch, decode, execute; the program counter supplies the address for the fetch.
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