What are registers?

• A. Small amounts of high-speed memory contained within the CPU.
• B. A peripheral device for input/output.
• C. Large blocks of RAM on the motherboard.
• D. A memory bus.

Answer: (A)

Registers are the tiny, ultra-fast storage slots inside the CPU that hold data, instructions, and control information while a program runs. They sit on the processor chip, so access is much faster than any external memory, and there aren’t many of them compared to main memory. The CPU uses these registers to keep operands and results close at hand for the arithmetic and logic unit, as well as to track the current instruction, the memory address being worked on, and status flags.

That fits the description of small amounts of high-speed memory contained within the CPU. The other options describe things that aren’t storage inside the processor: a peripheral I/O device, large RAM on the motherboard, or the memory bus used to connect memory and other components.