Which term describes the management of simultaneous transactions to prevent conflicts?

Mateus R.Jan 12, 2026

Think of a busy diner where three waiters all try to grab the last slice of pie at the same time, someone has to be in charge of making sure only one waiter gets it and the others wait their turn without the kitchen catching fire. That job, the whole system of managing who goes when and making sure transactions do not stomp on each other, is called concurrency control, which is your answer D. Locking (option A) is just one tool concurrency control uses, like a "reserved" sign on that pie slice, and serialization (option B) is one strategy within it, but neither one is the umbrella term. "Database control" in option C is not a real standard term at all and is there purely to trip you up. The exam is asking for the big-picture management concept, and that is concurrency control, full stop.

Carlos M.Dec 15, 2025

D is right, though I'd push back slightly on A being a distractor here since locking is actually one of the mechanisms used to implement concurrency control, not a separate concept, so the test is really asking for the umbrella term. Concurrency control is the correct answer because it names the whole discipline of managing simultaneous transactions to avoid conflicts like dirty reads, lost updates, and phantom reads.

Orla P.Dec 20, 2025

The answer is D, concurrency control, and the exam is testing whether you know the difference between a concept and one of its tools. Locking, option A, is what trips most people here because it sounds authoritative and it is genuinely involved in managing simultaneous transactions, but locking is a mechanism, not the overarching term for the whole discipline. Serialization, option B, is another real database idea that describes ordering transactions so they behave as if they ran one at a time, which is actually a goal that concurrency control tries to achieve, so it is a subset of the concept rather than the name of the concept itself. Concurrency control is the umbrella term that covers locking, serialization, timestamping, and any other method a DBMS uses to keep simultaneous transactions from stepping on each other, so D is the only answer that fits the scope of the question as written.

Wesley A.Jan 2, 2026

Serialization is the one here, B all day. When you think about what the exam is really testing, it is asking how the system handles multiple transactions hitting the same data at the same time, and serialization is exactly that process of ordering those transactions so they execute as if they ran one at a time with no conflicts. Locking is just a mechanism, a tool you use inside that process, not the name of the management concept itself.

Fatima Z.Dec 17, 2025

Okay so I burned this one into my brain with the phrase "DC Comics" where DC stands for Database Control, and just like a comic universe keeps all its storylines from crashing into each other, Database Control is the big umbrella term that governs everything happening at once inside your database, which is exactly what this question is describing. Locking and serialization are just tools inside that umbrella, so C has to be the answer here.