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Module Quiz

These are capstone-applied, scenario-based questions. Recall alone will not pass them. The right answer, in most cases, is "it depends -- here is what I would ask, here is what I would cut, here is what I would write down."

Complete after all concept and practice pages.

Current Module Questions​

Question 1: Problem right-sizing​

A student proposes: "A distributed, event-sourced, CQRS-based grocery list for a family of four." Name three signals that this capstone is wrongly scoped, and one question you would ask the student to help them re-scope.

Question 2: Risk register under pressure​

You are at the end of week 2. Your #1 risk was "I have never deployed WebSockets to my target cloud." You deployed them successfully in week 1. Your load test reveals a new risk: broadcast latency spikes to 2 seconds when a single client has a slow network. What do you do to the risk register, and does your architecture need to change?

Question 3: MVP versus feature creep​

In week 3, you realize that adding voting (not in your MVP non-goals) would take "only two days." Your vertical slice is not yet deployed to staging. Given the scope-cut rules you wrote in week 1, what do you do?

Question 4: EventStorming hot spot to architecture​

During solo EventStorming, you mark "note broadcast to peers" as a hot spot because you do not know what happens when a peer is offline. You carry this into Cluster 3. How does this hot spot shape your characteristics ranking and your style decision?

Question 5: Subdomain misclassification​

A student classifies "authentication" as core for a capstone that is a personal knowledge base. Why is this almost certainly wrong, and what does it predict about the capstone's outcome if uncorrected?

Question 6: Ubiquitous language breakdown​

In week 3 you notice the design doc uses "retro" and the database schema uses "meeting" for the same entity. Nothing is broken. What do you do, and why does it matter at capstone scale?

Question 7: Top-3 characteristics under a changed constraint​

You planned top-3 as operability, simplicity, real-time responsiveness. In week 2, you discover your target cloud free tier does not support the WebSockets needed for real-time. What do you do to the characteristics list, and what is the downstream effect?

Question 8: Style choice under honest constraints​

A student picks microservices for a solo 6-week capstone "to demonstrate modern architecture." They have a single core subdomain and no scale requirements. Critique the decision.

Question 9: Fitness function versus unit test​

Your design doc claims: "the export module does not depend on the realtime module." Describe the fitness function that enforces this and explain why a unit test on the export module is insufficient.

Question 10: ADR under deadline pressure​

It is week 4. You are behind schedule. You discover you need to swap your datastore. You are tempted to just change the code. What is the minimum ADR discipline you must maintain, and why?

Question 11: C4 level selection​

Your capstone is a modular monolith with one datastore. A student reviewer says "you need Component diagrams for every container." Why is that wrong at capstone scale?

Question 12: Schedule anti-pattern detection​

It is Friday of week 2. Your commit history shows the last two weeks of work was on the UI and the logging setup. No end-to-end request has run. Which anti-pattern is this, and what is the recovery move?

Question 13: Scope-cut rule invocation​

Your cut-rule says: "end of week 3, MVP not deployed to staging -> cut column clustering." It is end of week 3, and the MVP is not deployed. You feel column clustering is "just one more day" away. Do you cut, and why?

Question 14: Defense answer shape​

You are asked during the defense: "what would you do differently with more time?" Which of these three answers is best, and why?
(a) "Nothing major -- I think the architecture is solid."
(b) "I would rewrite the whole thing as services -- I really wanted to try that."
(c) "I would harden the broadcast path with a bounded per-client outbound queue. Today it is in-process fan-out; under real scale that would not hold. See ADR-001's 'premature at 20 users' line."

Question 15: Risk-driven decision gate​

You have three candidate capstone problems. What single question do you ask of each to pick the right one? Justify the question.

Interleaved Review Questions​

Prior Module Question 1 (from S7 M01 Architecture Fundamentals)​

What makes an architecture characteristic "implicit" versus "explicit," and why does it matter for your capstone's design doc?

Prior Module Question 2 (from S7 M03 DDD)​

What is the difference between a bounded context and a module?

Prior Module Question 3 (from S7 M05 ADRs)​

Why does an ADR's "consequences" section need to name negative consequences, not just positive ones?

Prior Module Question 4 (from S8 M01 System Design Methodology)​

When does non-functional requirements gathering feed into the architecture, versus vice versa?

Prior Module Question 5 (from S6 M05 Distributed Systems Fundamentals)​

What is the single most common reason to avoid distributed systems at capstone scale?

Self-Assessment and Remediation​

Mastery Level (90-100% correct):

  • Ready. You can frame, decide, document, and defend a capstone architecture.

Proficient Level (75-89% correct):

  • Review the cluster whose questions you missed. Re-do the corresponding practice page. Re-rehearse the defense for that area.

Developing Level (60-74% correct):

  • Return to the concept pages in the weak cluster. Re-run the corresponding practice lab. Do not start Module 2 until at 75%+.

Insufficient Level (<60% correct):

  • You have not internalized the capstone-framing habits. Revisit S7 M01 + S7 M05 first, then all five clusters of this module, in order. Take the quiz again.

Progression boundary​

Quiz performance calibrates retrieval and reasoning. It does not replace runnable work, changed-case transfer, the module assessment or required semester evidence. Consult practice calibration for the additional independent cases.