GATE CS 2015 Set 3 Q1 — CPU Scheduling

The correct option is D.

To understand why, let us look at the definition of the process states:

• Running State: At any given instant, a single CPU can execute at most one process. Therefore, for a system with $n$ CPUs, the maximum number of processes in the Running state is $n$.
• Ready State: The Ready state holds all the processes that are loaded into main memory and are waiting to be scheduled on a CPU. The capacity of the ready queue depends on the available system memory (RAM) and operating system limits, not on the number of processors.

Thus, the maximum number of processes that can reside in the Ready state is independent of the number of CPUs ($n$).