This is the start of a Core Data question. During my interview, I blurted out that an entry in the database uses these Managed Object Contexts to store and/or save the state of a modified entry. In a more formal sense (and according to Apple's official documentation), a managed object context represents a single object space, or scratch pad, in a Core Data application. It's the object your app uses to create and fetch managed objects, and to manage undo & redo operations. Within a given context, there is at most one managed object to represent any given record in a persistent store.