DB25 -- Parallel or Serial?

[CoreyD]

So I was taking an A+ quiz and it said this:

38 . A male DB-25 port is most likely a:
     A. Network port
     B. Serial port
     C. Parallel port
     D. Game port

I guessed parallel port, but it's a gosh darn serial port!? How can a 25-pin connector/port no matter male or female be a serial!? Serial connections can only carry one byte at a time, while a parallel port can carry 8 bytes at a time. If the 25-pin male port is serial, then I believe that's a waste of gosh darn pins!

 

[Elbatrop1]

Old school serial ports were DB-25. It is kind of a waste of pins. 9 on the modern serial ports work fine. The extra pins (on db-9 or db-25) are for signalling back and forth between the computer and the device that is connected to it (usually a dialup modem).

 

[CoreyD]

But isn't a DB-25 usually parallel these days?