Institution: Bank Asia Ltd Exam: Bank Asia Ltd - Management Trainees - 17.06.2011 ||
Topic: ICT (তথ্য ও যোগাযোগ প্রযুক্তি), Subject: Computer and ICT (তথ্য ও যোগাযোগ প্রযুক্তি)

Best Answer Explained in Below-:

A byte is a fundamental unit of digital information storage and processing in computing and telecommunications. It is universally defined as consisting of 8 bits. A bit, which stands for "binary digit," is the smallest unit of data in a computer, representing a binary value of either 0 or 1. The organization of bits into larger groups such as bytes allows for more complex data representation.

The choice of 8 bits per byte originated from early computer design and has become a standard due to its efficiency in representing common data types. For example, with 8 bits, a byte can encode 256 different values (from 0 to 255), which is sufficient to represent a wide range of characters in digital communication, including letters, numbers, and symbols, as seen in encoding systems like ASCII.

In contrast, options like 4 bits (which would only allow for 16 values) or 16 bits (allowing for 65,536 values) do not align with this standard and are used for different purposes (like nibbles or words). Therefore, the correct answer is B) 8, as this accurately defines the size of a byte in modern computing architecture.