Question
Which of the following process state transitions is/are NOT possible?
Official answer and solution
- Official answer
- B and C
- From
- Official GATE 2024 answer key
Solution
Check the standard 5-state operating system process lifecycle diagram (New, Ready, Running, Waiting/Blocked, Terminated).
- (A) Running to Ready is possible: Occurs when a running process is preempted (e.g., its time quantum expires or a higher-priority process arrives).
- (B) Waiting to Running is NOT possible: When the event or I/O operation a waiting process was blocked on completes, the process transitions from Waiting to Ready, and must wait in the ready queue to be scheduled onto the CPU.
- (C) Ready to Waiting is NOT possible: A process in the Ready state is not executing on the CPU, so it cannot request I/O or execute a blocking system call to enter the Waiting state.
- (D) Running to Terminated is possible: Occurs when the running process finishes execution (
exit()) or is aborted.
Final answer
Options (B), (C)
The answer is the one in the official GATE answer key. The solution is this site's own explanation.
Source
- Paper
- GATE 2024 Computer Science and Information Technology - Set 1 (CS1)
- Question
- 25 of 65
- Section
- Computer Science and Information Technology
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