General thoughts: Software Design and Development Exam (1 Viewer)

[eating]

Learned about binary division the day before lol

 

[ttenroca]

Haven't seen the paper but students are saying the HW\SW option was horrendous. Thoughts?

 

[thephantom]

^ Hw/sw was the worst section, section 1 and 2 were fairly easy though

 

[eating]

^ Hw/sw was the worst section, section 1 and 2 were fairly easy though

I may have screwed up the "What factors affect if an array should be sorted, and which search type should be used?", just due to clarity, and at the end I started going off topic and talking about sequential and random files lol

Also, many of my answers went outside the lines, but within the ⌞ ⌟ markers in the corners of the page (I ran out of that extra writing space after messing up both my pseudocodes). I hope my answers actually get read.

Haven't seen the paper but students are saying the HW\SW option was horrendous. Thoughts?

HW\SW is my strength, but it had a binary division question (if they expect full and proper working [shift and subtract], most people will get it wrong) and a question about headers, body data and trailers, using escape characters (eg. What happens if the escape character is removed from the string?) They gave us all the stuff to interpret the body with, but one question asked "What data would be in the header and trailer?" with no given information except that the data went to digital displays.

Nothing about flip-flops and shift registers though.

 

[RFSurdsman]

How do you read the sequential file for the algorithm question? I got rekt by that and the instantiation question in programming paradigms

 

[eating]

How do you read the sequential file for the algorithm question? I got rekt by that and the instantiation question in programming paradigms

I just wrote the commands "Open FoodData", "Read next line". Should be enough for psuedocode.
Hopefully accessing each character in the line like an array is valid (ie. "IF line(letter) = 'a', do thing").

Was Programming Paradigms alright?

 

[ttenroca]

I just wrote the commands "Open FoodData", "Read next line". Should be enough for psuedocode.
Hopefully accessing each character in the line like an array is valid (ie. "IF line(letter) = 'a', do thing").

You should be OK with all that. Open file for read\write\append is a little more correct.

Had a look at the data stream question. A really wordy and overly complex scenario with no mention of the header\trailer contents, then the first question is about header \trailer. The question was then poorly worded. Should have been something along the lines of what information is typically found in a header\trailer. Would have tested the same knowledge without confusing the f out of everyone.

Header: Start of data block, possible length of data, desintation\source device
Trailer: End of data block, error check (eg. check sum)

If you had anything like that in there would have been alright.

Second part spelt out CAT in Courier\Italic\bold with some flashing which changes
3rd part with the 1B missing spelt out CFPPAT I think

 

[eating]

You should be OK with all that. Open file for read\write\append is a little more correct.

I think I wrote "Open [...] for input" (from Visual Basic, but should still clear enough for pseudo) (I'm 90% sure I didn't write output instead of input lol)

Had a look at the data stream question. A really wordy and overly complex scenario with no mention of the header\trailer contents, then the first question is about header \trailer. The question was then poorly worded. Should have been something along the lines of what information is typically found in a header\trailer. Would have tested the same knowledge without confusing the f out of everyone.

I did that question last iirc. Also, almost forgot to add that the length of the body would need to be in the header, until last few minutes. I also put "and other metadata" because my answer was too short :/

Second part spelt out CAT in Courier\Italic\bold with some flashing which changes
3rd part with the 1B missing spelt out CFPPAT I think

OH SHIT, I DIDN'T SEE THE "C"

 

[ttenroca]

I did that question last iirc. Also, almost forgot to add that the length of the body would need to be in the header, until last few minutes. I also put "and other metadata" because my answer was too short :/

Nice - the markers Giz themselves every time someone puts "metadata" in an answer. Youll do well

 

[Iskander]

I drew my charts and stuff with a pen. Will I get marked down?

 

[eating]

I drew my charts and stuff with a pen. Will I get marked down?

I doubt it. I did pen too. The paper says to use pencil, but I believe it's mainly so they don't get massive scribbled-out parts when someone might make a mistake and try to fix it but end up making it illegible, etc. Also, I've never seen "pencil" in a marking criteria. I don't even think you need a ruler, as long as it's clear what you did.

With the screen layout question, I didn't plan ahead and the first two elements were not aligned with the others. So I just wrote two notes mentioning to shift them across so as to be in-line. I hope they're cool with that.

 

[KingOfActing]

Whole exam was a joke

Super easy, expecting at least 96-97 raw

 

[eating]

Whole exam was a joke

Super easy, expecting at least 96-97 raw

Same. I know I've lost a mark or two due to silly mistake, but should be set for the rest.

 

[BarcaBoi]

SR cut-off any ideas?

 

[eating]

SR cut-off any ideas?

Last year a 97 (adjusted and raw, apparently) said they got a state rank (on rawmarks.info). I reckon it will be higher this year.

 

[jmk21]

So the paper is up on BOS, anyone want to discuss MC?
http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/hsc_exams/2016/exams/2016-hsc-sdd.pdf
Here 's my answers:

1) A
2) D
3) B
4) D (literally could be any of them)
5) D
6) C
7) D (only one that describes physical components?)
8) C
9) A or B (?)
10) B
11) D
12) B
13) D
14) A
15) C
16) B
17) D
18) A
19) B
20) C

 

[eating]

1) A
2) D
3) B
4) D (literally could be any of them)
5) D
6) C
7) D (only one that describes physical components?)
8) C
9) A or B (?)
10) B
11) D
12) B
13) D
14) A
15) C
16) B
17) D
18) A
19) B
20) C

I just went through them in three minutes, mostly using memory rather than working them out (so maybe some errors)

1 a
2 d
3 b
4 d
5 d
6 c
7 d
8 c
9 A (I'm not sure that document libraries are a thing, or maybe I'm not familiar with them. I wrote A in the exam)
10 b
11 d
12 b
13 C (iirc, a selection sort swaps the values of the initial and destination indices)
14 a
15 I messed up: though SwapElements swapped X,Z, not their elements.
16 I messed up: "
17 d
18 a
19 b
20 I messed up: described the subroutine, not the register.

Well, that's a running count of 4/5 marks lost from stupid errors. There goes state rank.

 

[RFSurdsman]

Question 9 is a strange question. I put B but after thinking about it, I think the correct answer might be A.

Does anyone know the cut off for Band 6? Or maybe the cut off for 95 ?

Also anyone know the answer for Q34 ii) (programming paradigms).

 

[KingOfActing]

Question 9 is a strange question. I put B but after thinking about it, I think the correct answer might be A.

Does anyone know the cut off for Band 6? Or maybe the cut off for 95 ?

Also anyone know the answer for Q34 ii) (programming paradigms).

Generally, software experiences no aligning at the top.

Raw 90 -> 90
Raw 95 -> 95

Band 5 cut off would probably be around 73-75