Which statement accurately describes First Normal Form as presented?

• A. Each field in a table must contain different information
• B. All attributes not dependent on the primary key must be eliminated
• C. No duplicate information permitted
• D. A table's primary key must be composed of multiple fields

Answer: (A)

First Normal Form is about atomic values and no repeating groups: every field should hold a single, indivisible piece of data, and you shouldn’t store lists or multiple values in one column for a given row.

The statement about each field containing different information tries to capture that idea, in a loose way, by pointing to single-valued data rather than multi-valued fields. It’s the closest fit among the options because 1NF focuses on avoiding multi-valued attributes. However, 1NF doesn’t require that every field contain unique information compared to other fields; it just requires that each field’s value be atomic.

The other options describe constraints that belong to later normal forms or general design rules rather than 1NF. Eliminating attributes not dependent on the primary key is about dependencies and higher normal forms. No duplicate information isn’t the exact 1NF requirement, since 1NF isn’t about forbidding duplicate rows by itself. Requiring a composite primary key is a design choice about keys and isn’t dictated by 1NF.