Christmas homework: Yes it does exist

Over Christmas you need to do two things:

Theory reviews

review the theory material we have completed this term.

3.3.1 Operating Systems
3.3.4 Floating point representation
3.3.7 Programming technique
3.3.9 Databases

You need to go onto the Nilpit system and make an entry under the "Target setting: Please record here your personal targets for Computing."

Explaining what specifically you need to target regarding the theory work.

Project research tasks

The tasks that each of you need to perform by the time we get back after Christmas need to be tackled. If you do not complete these tasks then that will push you back on time for completing the project.

You need to go onto the Nilpit system and make an entry under the "Computing Project Record the basic outline of your project here"


Explaining what the research task you need to complete over Christmas entails.

Homework: Database question review

Homework is due on Thursday 20th December 2012.

This is a very critical homework, knowledge is only part of the game at A level, you are expected to know things, but what they are actually focused on testing is can you apply that knowledge to specific contexts. It is the context that cannot be predicted, they can make these up till the cows come home. They will always stick to the topics we cover but they will come up with new questions to ask about those topics so exam technique is important. You need to go back through the User Interface homework questions (homework 6), with the mark scheme answers. You need to look at each question individually, so organise a report in this way (question by question). When doing this task you need to be honest with yourself, there is no point kidding about why you scored what you scored.

Highlighted mark scheme answers are here they are also on the F453 page of the Intranet.

For each question look at the following:

If you did well

• What specifically did you do/have you done to achieve this result?
• Look at the mark scheme why are the other answers given the correct ones? (look at the context of the question and  how they fit with it)

If you scored poorly or loosely

• Look at the mark scheme why are the answers given the correct ones? (look at the context of the question and  how they fit with it)
• Why did your answers not give you the marks? (were they off topic, did they not target the question asked, did you waffle, were you vague, did you start with a statement before explaining, did you state and not describe etc...)
• What mistakes did you make with your approach to the question? (did you read it before answering or did you assume you knew what the question was, did you read your answers back to check you were answering the question asked etc...)
• What will you do on future questions in order to ensure you don't make these same mistakes?

Once this task is complete I will ask you to enter a target into the Nilpit system under ILP (Individual learning plans) outlining what you need to do in future when tackling exam questions.

Project: Investigation and Analysis

You will shortly get your feedback on your Analysis and Investigation section of your project.

While we are working on the design section during project lessons, you need to be going through the feedback and making appropriate changes to in order to attempt an improvement.

This will comprise your homework next week.

These changes need to be handed in no later than Thursday 6th December 2012, this will then mark a finish point for that section of the project, so that we can concentrate on the key design, development and testing stages.

Homework: Databases

This weeks theory homework is a Database exam question.

Database homework link

This work is due next Friday 30th November 2012.

When tackling this homework do not attempt it under exam conditions, make sure you use your notes, you also have the Bradley text book and the Internet - use the resources available to you. If you leave it till the last minute then you will not be able to access these resources.

Project: Investigation and analysis hand in

You need to ensure that you hand in you Investigation and Analysis sections complete when we come back from half term.

It is important that this is handed in complete in order, so that it is as easy to follow as possible.

I will assess this work and give you a mark out of 3 for the initial investigation section and a mark out of 14 for the analysis section.

This feedback will consist of:

• Some written comments on the work (where appropriate)
• A personal entry onto the nilpit system
• General comments feedback section which will be placed on the Intranet.

You need to then use this feeback to make improvements to this work.

Bear in mind if I don't have a piece of work in front of me I cannot give you feeback.