The answer is system availability percentage and mean time to repair (MTTR). System availability percentage directly measures the uptime of critical IT services, reflecting how reliably operations meet agreed-upon service levels, while MTTR quantifies the average time needed to restore a failed component, making both essential IT operations KPIs for evaluating incident response effectiveness. On the CISA exam, these metrics test your understanding of operational efficiency and recovery capability, often appearing in questions that contrast leading indicators like MTTR with lagging ones like total downtime. A common trap is confusing MTTR with mean time between failures (MTBF), but remember that MTTR focuses on repair speed, not failure frequency. To recall this pair, think of the “uptime and fix-time” duo: availability tells you how often the system is up, and MTTR tells you how fast it gets back up when it fails.
CISA Practice Question: Information Systems Operations and Business Resilience
This CISA practice question tests your understanding of information systems operations and business resilience. Read the scenario carefully and evaluate each option against the stated constraints before committing to an answer. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
Which TWO of the following are key performance indicators (KPIs) for IT operations?
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Mean time to repair (MTTR)
Mean time to repair (MTTR) measures the average time taken to restore a failed IT service or component, directly reflecting operational efficiency and incident response effectiveness. It is a standard KPI for IT operations because it quantifies the speed of recovery, which is critical for minimizing downtime and maintaining service levels.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
✗
Number of unresolved incidents
Why it's wrong here
While relevant, it's not a primary KPI; backlog is often tracked but not a standard KPI.
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates confuse operational metrics (like unresolved incidents) with KPIs, or they mistakenly include non-operational metrics (like employee satisfaction or budget variance) that are relevant to other domains but not to IT operations performance.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
MTTR is calculated as total repair time divided by the number of incidents, and it is often tracked alongside Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) to assess reliability. In real-world scenarios, a low MTTR might indicate efficient incident response processes, but it can be skewed by many minor incidents with quick fixes, masking underlying chronic issues. System availability percentage, typically calculated as (Total Time - Downtime) / Total Time × 100, is often expressed in terms of 'nines' (e.g., 99.999% availability) and is a direct measure of uptime compliance against Service Level Agreements (SLAs).
KKey Concepts to Remember
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
→Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
→Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A practitioner preparing for the CISA exam encounters this exact type of scenario on the job. The correct answer here is not the most general option — it is the best answer for the specific constraint described. Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option. Real exam questions reward reading the full scenario before eliminating options, because the constraint defines which answer fits.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
Information Systems Operations and Business Resilience — This question tests Information Systems Operations and Business Resilience — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Mean time to repair (MTTR) — Mean time to repair (MTTR) measures the average time taken to restore a failed IT service or component, directly reflecting operational efficiency and incident response effectiveness. It is a standard KPI for IT operations because it quantifies the speed of recovery, which is critical for minimizing downtime and maintaining service levels.
What should I do if I get this CISA question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Question Discussion
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