Question

In IEEE 32-bit representations, the mantissa of the fraction is said to occupy ______ bits.

(a) 24

(b) 23

(c) 20

(d) 16

I had been asked this question in an interview for internship.

This question is from Representation of Floating Number in portion Arithmetic of Computer Architecture

Answer 1

The correct choice is (b) 23

For explanation I would say: The mantissa is made to occupy 23 bits, with 8 bit exponent.