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Understanding time sharing and time slicing in operating systems

This is an easy foundational question about how modern operating systems manage multiple processes competing for a single processor. It tests whether you understand the basic mechanism that allows an OS to appear to run many programs simultaneously, even on single-core hardware.

The question probes your grasp of how the OS scheduler divides processor time among running jobs, and why this division is necessary. You should be able to explain the core trade-offs: how breaking execution into smaller intervals lets many processes make progress, but also introduces context-switching overhead. This is a conceptual question rather than a calculation, so clarity of explanation matters more than mathematical detail.

• CPU scheduling and preemption
• Context switching costs
• Process states and the ready queue
• Time quantum and scheduling granularity