Computer Science Pathway EOPA Practice Test

Normalization forms organize data to minimize redundancy and update anomalies by structuring information into related tables. The first form ensures every value is atomic and there are no repeating groups, so each column holds a single value and each row is uniquely identifiable. Building on that, the second form requires that all non-key attributes depend on the entire primary key; if part of a composite key determines a non-key attribute, that attribute belongs in a separate table. The third form tightens this further by removing transitive dependencies, meaning non-key attributes should depend only on candidate keys, not on other non-key attributes. Together, these rules guide you to design schemas that store each fact once and maintain consistency across the database. They’re used to reduce redundancy and anomalies, though sometimes you trade normalization for performance with controlled denormalization when needed.