What term describes the storage system that holds data and instructions on a device?

• A. Processor
• B. Computer memory
• C. Hard drive
• D. Cache

Answer: (B)

The main idea here is identifying where a device keeps the data and instructions it needs to run programs. That place is computer memory—the working storage that the CPU can access quickly while a program is executing. Memory holds the data and code currently in use, allowing fast read and write operations to keep the processor fed with instructions and information.

Hard drives, by contrast, store data long-term even when the device is powered off, which is why they’re described as long-term storage rather than the active working space. Cache is a tiny, ultra-fast subset of memory located near the processor to speed up repeated data accesses; it’s important for performance, but it isn’t the general storage system for active data and instructions like memory is.

So, the term that describes the storage system holding data and instructions on a device is computer memory.