Memory: free-recall review
Free-recall prompts across the memory unit. Answer each from memory first, then reveal the model answer and compare.
Recall beats re-reading. For each prompt, say or write a full answer from memory before you open the model answer — the effort of pulling it back is what fixes the idea in place.
Reconstruct the unit’s core ideas — address vs value, the byte as the addressable unit, random access, pointers and dereferencing, and stack vs heap — without looking back at the lessons.
- 01What is the difference between an address and a value, and why is it easy to confuse them?
- 02Why is memory byte-addressed rather than bit-addressed, and what is a byte?
- 03What does random access (the RA in RAM) actually mean?
- 04What is a pointer, and how does dereferencing one work?
- 05Why is indirection through pointers worth its extra cost?
- 06How do the stack and the heap differ in management and lifetime, given they are the same physical memory?
If you could rebuild each answer from memory, you hold the unit’s spine: an address names a cell and a value is what sits there; the byte is the addressable unit and memory is byte-addressed; random access reaches any cell directly by address; a pointer is a value used as an address, and dereferencing it costs a second read in exchange for sharing and one-place updates; and the stack and heap are the same RAM split by management and lifetime — automatic LIFO frames versus explicitly managed, longer-lived objects.
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