01. Following The DAO exploit in 2016, part of the Ethereum community rejected the proposed hard fork and continued operating the original, unaltered chain, even though this meant the exploited funds would not be recovered.
Which principle did this faction prioritize above recovering the exploited funds?
a) That validators should have final authority to decide the outcome of any disputed smart contract.
b) That transaction fees should be minimized whenever the network undergoes a protocol upgrade.
c) That the ledger's recorded history should remain immutable regardless of outcome.
d) That deployed smart contracts should always remain upgradable so future exploits can be patched.
02. What is the relationship between an EIP and an ERC (Ethereum Request for Comment) standard such as ERC-721?
a) An ERC and an EIP are produced through completely independent proposal processes with no overlap between them
b) An ERC is a category of EIP, the Application Standards track, defining interfaces such as token standards
c) An EIP is a subtype of ERC that applies only to core protocol changes, not application-level standards
d) An ERC is created only after its corresponding EIP has been formally withdrawn and reassigned a new number
03. Under Ethereum's current Proof of Stake design, a brief fork can occasionally appear near the very tip of the chain when different validators temporarily see different candidate blocks.
Why do such forks near the chain tip get resolved quickly, while blocks that have since been finalized are treated as effectively permanent?
a) The fork-choice rule converges validators onto one branch, and finality then makes reverting those blocks very costly.
b) Forks are resolved by a central coordinator, who also permanently locks in finalized blocks.
c) Recent forks are ignored, and finality is just a label applied after a fixed number of days passes.
d) Validators vote once per fork on the branch to keep, and no later block, attestation, or protocol event can ever change that outcome.
04. Why does a wallet application need to know nothing about an individual token's internal contract code in order to display its balance and enable transfers, provided the token follows a standard such as ERC-20?
a) All tokens that follow the same standard share a single contract address on the Ethereum network
b) Ethereum requires every token contract to be deployed from an identical, unmodifiable bytecode template
c) Wallets query a central registry maintained by the Ethereum Foundation that tracks every token's balance independently of its contract
d) The standard defines a common set of function names and behaviors that any compliant contract implements.
05. Two independent companies each maintain their own private ledger to track a shared series of transactions between them, and must periodically compare records and resolve discrepancies caused by errors or delayed updates on either side.
Which characteristic of a shared distributed ledger like Ethereum's is specifically designed to eliminate this kind of reconciliation process?
a) Private keys guarantee that transaction details remain confidential between the two parties.
b) Transactions on Ethereum are processed without any network fees.
c) All participants observe and agree on a single shared ledger state through consensus.
d) Smart contracts automatically resolve any legal disagreements that arise between the two companies.
06. Which economic function of money is supported when Ethereum is used to denominate transaction fees?
a) Medium of exchange
b) Medium of credit
c) Store of value
d) Unit of account
07. Ethereum's ongoing development is shaped by several distinct groups, including core developers, validators/stakers, everyday users, and businesses building on the platform.
Which statement best describes how these groups typically differ in the way they influence the protocol's direction?
a) Developers propose protocol changes, validators signal support via client choice, and users and businesses drive adoption through demand.
b) Only core developers have any influence over Ethereum's direction; validators, users, and businesses simply accept whatever changes are released.
c) Businesses and users vote directly on protocol upgrades through an official on-chain ballot that developers and validators must obey.
d) Validators alone decide which protocol changes are implemented, since they control block production and every other group has no practical influence.
08. Which Solidity function best represents a staking operation in Proof of Stake (PoS)?
function stake() public payable { require(msg.value > 1 ether, "Insufficient stake"); stakes[msg.sender] += msg.value; }
a) It allows users to withdraw Ether from their account.
b) It lets users stake Ether to participate in block validation.
c) It deducts a fee from the user’s balance.
d) It increases the Ether supply in the user’s account.
09. A decentralized exchange built on an automated market maker (AMM) model allows users to trade one token for another without a traditional order book.
How is the exchange rate between the two tokens typically determined in this model?
a) By a fixed exchange rate that the protocol's developers set when the pool is created and never change.
b) By matching individual buy and sell orders placed by traders in a shared order book.
c) Algorithmically, based on the current ratio of the two tokens held together in a liquidity pool.
d) By the current network gas price at the time the trade transaction is submitted.
10. What economic concept is demonstrated by Ethereum’s ability to operate without trusted intermediaries?
a) Trust minimization
b) Fractional reserve banking
c) Inflation targeting
d) Monetary expansion