ITPEC IP April 2026 Question 11
ITPEC IP April 2026 — Question 11 of 100
Cache memory reduces the effective access time of main memory — it keeps copies of recently or frequently accessed data close to the CPU.
Cache is much smaller but faster than main memory. Programs tend to reuse nearby instructions and data, so many requests are cache hits and are satisfied quickly. Only misses need the slower main-memory access; this lowers the average, or effective, access time.
Answer (b)
Why not others:
- (a) reverses the size relationship: cache is normally far smaller than main memory
- (c) confuses capacity with speed; a large main memory is still slower than cache, so caching remains useful
- (d) cache contents are managed automatically by hardware and the memory hierarchy, not selected manually by the user
Key rule: Cache exploits temporal and spatial locality to trade a small amount of fast memory for a lower average memory-access time.
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