A good answer might be:

Each MIPS instruction is 32 bits (four bytes) long. The PC is incremented to point at the next instruction.

Sequential Execution

MIPS machine instructions are all 32 bits wide (4 bytes). Normally, instructions are executed one after another in the same sequence that they have been placed in memory, starting with the lowest address and going up. The execution sequence can be changed with a branch or a jump machine instruction.

Here, for example, is the program from the previous chapter. The three machine instructions have been placed at locations 0x00400000, 0x00400004, and 0x00400008, and are executed in that order.

QUESTION 9:

After the instruction at 0x00400008 has executed, what happens?