Post Mortem Notes This is not a VCAA publication.
I do not speak for the VCAA, the IT examiners, or exam markers. I was not involved in the writing or marking of this examination. Extracts from exams are all Copyright © VCAA, and are used with permission. Use these post mortems at your own risk. I reserve the right to change my mind completely, at short notice, about anything I've said here. Suggestions, discussions and corrections are welcome. Questions look like this. |
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Last changed: March 9, 2022 11:34 AM State average results added - 3 Feb 2011. |
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The Post Mortem Awards |
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The SCHMACKOS award is given to questions that are a complete dog's breakfast. |
 The Questions That Make You Sick As A Dog Award |
And the exciting Illiteracy Award. |
SECTION B - Short answer questions |
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Answer all questions in the spaces provided. |
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| Question 1 | For the directory path HardDrive C:\Staff\Reports2009\Absences.doc, describe the relationship between Reports2009 and Absences.doc. 1 mark. 2 lines. State average was 0.7. Reports2009 is a folder/directory that contains Absences.doc. Most students recognised that Absences.doc was a file in the 2009 Reports folder. |
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Question 2 |
David is the manager at Iceland Golf Club. He is creating a database of all members, their contact details and membership cost and is preparing a data structure table as part of his design.
No, phone numbers should never be stored as numbers. Numbers cannot contain the parentheses and spaces shown in the description. I'm not too sure why the digits were underlined. Maybe it was suggesting an input mask or something else that Filemaker users don't have. State average was 1.9 |
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| Question 3 | The owner of a company with its head office in Melbourne and five other offices in country towns wants to upgrade the network operating system (NOS) and the application software used on the company's network. a. State one function of a network operating system in this company.1 mark It authenticates users as they login. At each office the technicians want both an instruction manual and online content sensitive help for the new software. State average was 0.3 Responses needed to mention the controlling or monitoring function of a network operating system and what it controls b. Explain why the technicians would want staff to have both types of user documentation. 2 marks They serve different purposes. State average was 1.1 Accepted responses referred to a booklet 'helping staff to solve easy problems without having to go online' or 'contact c. Explain how online content sensitive help works. Give an example to support your answer. 2 marks Help is offered based on what objects the user is currently using or places the user is currently in.
State average was 0.7 Many accepted responses described users activating help by hovering over or clicking an item to obtain assistance with The owner decides to compare the efficiency of the instruction manual and online content sensitive help, d. Recommend a strategy the owner could use to test the two options. 3 marks Tell a typical user to use each source of help to find out how to perform some software function. Time the user and find which help source gave the right information faster and/or with less effort. State average was 1.2 Strategies that included a plan to set up two situations derived from the scenario and that measured and compared the |
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| Question 4 | City Secondary College's school concert is being held on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights at the school hall which holds 300 people. Families can book up to eight tickets for any one night at a time. All tickets cost $10. A section of the online booking form design is shown below.
a. Recommend an electronic technique for the Night field to enhance the likelihood of inputting accurate data. Justify your choice. 2 marks Use either a drop-down menu control, or a set of three radio buttons (one button for each night). In either case, a night must be entered, and not more than one night can be entered at a time. State average was 1.4 A drop list or a combo box listing the three nights was accepted as an electronic validation technique. Many students explained that this reduced errors because it listed only the available options or that the options were spelt correctly..
Night must be filled in. This is a badly, badly written question. It does not say what aspect of the form should be tested. Does it mean validation checks (as given above), or tests of the accuracy of the information? In the latter case, one could say: Manually calculate the total cost and compare it with the value calculated by the form. Ambiguous and bad. State average was 0.8 A number of tests for checking the online booking form were accepted, including:
It would not be able to calculate the total cost since it would not be able to interpret the string of numerals as a number. It also would not be able to count the total number of tickets sold for the night without converting the text field to a number first. Is there some significance to the first booking? Why single out the first booking if the fault will apply to any booking? And yes, I realise that students should be able to select and use relevant supplied information, and identify and ignore supplied data that is not necessary for a solution, but this "first booking" information is just unnecessary. State average was 0.7 Many students recognised that setting the No. of Tickets field to a text data type could cause a problem when the data |
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Question 5 |
A section of a PERT chart used to monitor a project is shown below.
a. List the tasks on the critical path. 1 mark A, C, E, F This series of tasks is the longest at 11 days. The other paths (A,C,D and B,E,F) are 8 days each. State average was 0.8 B. Use the PERT chart shown above to complete the Gantt chart below.
There should be dependency arrows from A to C, B to E and D, C to D and E, E to F. Interesting to see dummy tasks (indicating that the task following the dotted line is dependent on the task before the dotted line even though no work need to be done.) We won't be seeing Gantt and PERT in the new course. State average was 2.2 To score full marks, students had to correctly indicate all tasks, the duration and predecessors. |
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Added 19 May 2011 - The official solution in the 2010 ITA Assessment Report was this:
I've got a major problem with this because it's obvious in the PERT that tasks A and B are concurrent. B is not dependent on A! Then, they went on to leave out fact that that tasks E and D were also dependent on task B through the dummy task. It's too late to re-mark exams, but it really makes me worry that markers can be given such dodgy official answers when grading papers.
A dog's breakfast - but this time it was the answer and not the question that was shocking. |
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Question 6 |
Small Creek Fisheries raises fish in ponds. A database manages the information for the feeding of fish and the ordering of fish food. Part of the database is shown in the table below.
a. If the following query was designed
list the records that would be selected. 1 mark 1, 2, 4, 5 2 and 5 are selected by Food supplier = "TOP" State average was 0.6 For the datasheet shown, the query Food supplier = 'TOP' OR Feeds per week = 7 would return the records 1, 2, 4, 5, or b. Explain how you could modify the database to keep track of food costs. 3 marks First, normalise it:
Then...
It might look like this Ponds table...
Suppliers table... You would need to source extra data for the food costs field.
And the data structure diagram...
Quite a bit of thinking for 3 marks! State average was 1.3 Most students could explain how to add a cost field to the database and multiply the data in that field by a food per week field to calculate a weekly food cost. Only a small number of students completed the answer with a description of how to present the output from that calculation. For example, 'add a field such as FoodCost per Kg then calculate FoodCost perWeek for each pond and finally generate a weekly report'. |
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| Question 7 | A team of young chefs works with students to develop healthy cooking habits as part of the Remote Education Program. The chefs complete progress reports about student skills after each visit to a school. This data is collected and forwarded on to program officials. The young chefs have a Virtual Private Network (VPN) which is accessed through the Remote Education Program website.
a. Identify one feature on the website that the young chefs could use to collaborate on important issues. Describe how it would be used. 2 marks Feature The team portal. The other links are to public information (e.g. publications) that anyone can access. Description. It would let only the chefs enter that part of the site so they could collaborate using appropriate tools. It has to be said that the portal itself does not help them collaborate. It only is a secure gateway to tools that will let them collaborate. State average was 1.3 Most responses identified the Team Portal link as a feature that the young chefs could use to take them to a login screen b. State one design element and explain how it has been applied to improve the effectiveness of the website. 2 marks Contrast: Strong difference between text and background colours Proportion: hierarchical heading size makes it clearer what is more important than what. Clarity & consistency: all headings have inverted colours (white on black) Usability: easy-to-find links for each type of user. Orientation: the use of columns for the map and site text prevents the text spreading too widely State average was 0.9 Accepted design elements included proportion (visual hierarchy), orientation (direction/aspect), clarity and consistency, colour and contrast, usability and accessibility, appropriateness and relevance. Accepted responses included a range of these design elements. Most students could identify a design element but only a minority could explain how it improved the effectiveness of the website. c. Design a screen that should appear when the Team Portal link is clicked. 2 marks [half page box] You'd be expecting a login screen. There would be a statement about who was entitled to enter. There would be a username textbox and password textbox adn a submit button. There should also be a "Cancel" button and/or a link back to the index page for people who got to this page in error. State average was 1.4 Most students designed a screen with the site title 'Remote Education Program', the page title 'Young Chefs' and a login/password feature for users who clicked on the Team Portal link. Many students forgot to include the main site title 'Remote Education Program'. Other reasonable designs were also awarded marks. d. Explain one disadvantage for team members using the VPN to communicate.2 marks They need an internet connection and computer and sufficient skills to use both. They have to remember usernames and passwords. Collaborating virtually often lacks face-to-face contact such as body language, facial expressions, handshakes etc. They can't taste each other's foods! State average was 0.8 Students identified a number of disadvantages for team members using the VPN to communicate. These included:
e. State two rules the team members should follow when developing their report if no moderator is appointed.2 marks Don't delete other people's contributions without their permission. No offensive language. No rude remarks about other collaborators. Don't hog the resource storage facility with excessively large items. State average was 1.2 Rules the team should follow when developing their report if no moderator was appointed, included (two of): Some members believe the VPN should have a moderator to check that the rules agreed to by members are followed. f. Do you agree? Give an example to support your answer. It's unlikely that a small team dedicated to the same goal would need to be mothered by a moderator. If anyone stepped out of line - e.g. making a mocking comment about another chef's recipe - then their peers would be able to make the offender change his or her ways. If the team of chefs is large (the case study does not say, so you are within your rights to explain your thinking) then a moderator may be useful in monitoring the use of the site and arbitrating impartially if someone contravenes the team's etiquette. The request for "an example to support yout answer" suggested to me that the examiners wanted students to say a moderator was a good idea and give an example of behaviour that would make the moderator useful. It's pretty hard to give an example of why a moderator is not needed! State average was 1.3 Answers that either agreed or disagreed with the statement and included an example were accepted. Students who agreed, for example, stated 'Yes, because some of the rules have legal implications and the moderator needs to check that student privacy is protected', and those who disagreed stated 'No, because the chefs are professionals and it's a lot of extra work for the moderator'.
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| Question 8 | BandicootPhones sells applications (apps) for a small mobile computer which includes a mobile phone that provides voice, text messages and the Internet. Most students were able to read the complex scenario in Question 8 and provide a coherent extended response. When asked to recommend backup media for a company using an online database, many students considered all three areas of concern systematically and justified three recommendations with specific examples. a. Would you expect BandicootPhones to use a flat file database or a relational database? It would have to be relational.
Give an example to justify your answer.2 marks They have different collections of data - e.g. staff, phones, customers, sales - that could not all be stored in a single flatfile database. State average was 1.1 Students who stated that BandicootPhones should use a relational database and justified their decision with reasons specific to the company were awarded full marks. For example, a relational database of linked tables because the staff, apps and customers' data can be grouped into tables and processed more quickly. BandicootPhones' sales have increased quickly and it is updating its backup strategy. It has to decide whether to have
b. Recommend and justify an appropriate media, schedule and location for its backup strategy. 6 marks Media Removable drives are very cheap and have huge capacity. They can be easily taken offsite for data security. Online backups will be quite slow compared to a local hard disk. Can you guarantee the reliability or security of outsourced backup locations? or Online backup can be accessed from any location; it's offsite. Portable hard disks are prone to fail. Media Schedule It's not a matter of one or the other, it's both. Full backups should be done weekly, with small and quick incremental backups happening each night. Were the examiner's seriously suggesting that students decide between full and incremental as their only backup strategy? Madness, if they were. Schedule Location Close - quick to retrieve the backups in case of data disaster. Remote - increased chance that a disaster that killed the primary data would also destroy the backups (e.g. bushfire) Didn't like the wording of this: what is "close"? The next room?? The next building? The next suburb? If the examiners trying just to get students to say "don't store backups onsite", how can they tell what a student knows if the student said "Close" meaning "in the next suburb", as opposed to "remote" meaning " in a different city altogether." Bad, vague wording! State average was 3.8 Location |
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Question 9 |
A company sells fashion items online to customers who sign up and login to its website with a FashionUserlD. As part of the sign-up process customers complete an online form that includes their email address, mailing address, favourite colours and annual salary. Huh? Who in their right mind would supply their annual salary to a shopping website? This is just silly. a. Describe how Cheryl can use the database to decide what web page should be shown to each customer. 2 marks 'Use a script.' Damned if I know. What is this question getting at? I can only assume it's a CMS if it contains customer information AND webpages. There must be some scripting available (I've played with Joomla and have not found any scripting - yet) which selects a page based on some field value in the customer database. Dog only knows what students made of this. How many of them have worked with CMS websites, or know how they work? Were the examiners just expecting a uselessly-vague answer like "use a script". I bet that's the best they will get from most students, and they'd better be happy giving marks for it. In last year's infamous spreadsheet question they expected "Use a macro" even though it was patently an absurd solution. Have the examiners drifted off into unrealistic fairy technology land again? Don't like that question at all. State average was 1.0 Responses that described a technique which could be used to identify customers who would be directed to the website with higher prices received full marks. Examples included: b. What question would you ask Cheryl about the ethics of creating a second set of web pages for customers who earn more than $50 000 per year? 1 mark
Again, I can't see the point of this question. Why would you question Cheryl at all - it's not her fault what her boss orders. I know that these ethics questions are always difficult to think up - and this one is not a good one. State average was 0.5 Responses that asked the Cheryl a question about deception or dishonesty were awarded a mark. For example, 'Do you think it's right to make people secretly pay more just because they work hard to make more money?'.
State average was 0.6 Responses that asked the boss a question about the fairness of ordering or bullying an employee to create a hidden link to a second set of 'rip-off' web pages were awarded full marks. For example, 'Do you think it's right to make a junior employee do something that is morally wrong when you are in the position to fire her?'. d. Recommend a strategy IT staff could follow when they are not sure if their work is ethical. 2 marks
O, I don't know or care any more. Too many marks given to damned ethical questions for one exam! State average was 0.7 The poor performance of students in these 4 questions says more about the quality of the questions than the ability of the students, I reckon. Suggested strategies that IT staff could follow when they are not sure if their work is ethical, included: |
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Question 10 |
SmallMart is evaluating the security of its information system. a. Describe a procedure Jack could use to test that the hard disk effectively completes a weekly full backup. 2 marks Restore the full backup onto a second computer and compare the accuracy of the contents of the original and the restored files. Note the question is about effectiveness, not efficiency. State average was 0.8 Responses which received full marks outlined two main steps of a procedure to test that the hard drive completed a weekly full backup effectively. For example, record data changes for one week on a second hard drive and then compare the data to see if it was the same/complete/accurate. A range of other reasonable two-step procedures were also awarded marks. b. Describe how Jack could test the procedure to shut down hardware without risking the transaction data. Give an example to support your answer. 2 marks Replace the real data on the system with sample data and then try shutting the system down. or Mirror the real system onto a second system and try the shutdown on the mirrored system. State average was 0.7 Responses which outlined reasonable steps to test the hardware shutdown procedure without risking the transaction data were awarded full marks. Examples included: In the previous year there were 25 illegal logins to the company's information system. A new procedure, where the 300 staff have to change their passwords every three months, has been introduced.
Criterion The number of illegal logins that happened per month after the new procedure was introduced. Justification The whole point of the new procedure was to reduce the number of illegal logins. Logically, that is the criterion that must be used to see if the new procedure has been effective. State average was 0.8 The most successful students responded in the form of a question; for example, 'Have there been fewer than 25 illegal logins in the 12 months since the new procedure was introduced?'. Students who clearly justified why you would compare the number of illegal logins in a particular period of time were awarded full marks. For example: The company owner asks Jack if regularly updating the firewall software is worth the cost. d. Suggest an answer Jack could give to the owner. Justify your suggestion.2 marks Suggestion Yes. Of course it is, you moron. Justification All security software must be regularly updated as new system security weakness are discovered and new exploits and dangerous technologies are developed. Relying on old technology (like old antivirus definitions) leaves you vulnerable to new threats. State average was 1.0 Another set of questions for which the state average never hit 50%. Can't blame the questions this time, however. Full marks were awarded to responses that provided good financial reasons for regularly updating firewall software, including: |
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| Question 11 | Frank uses a small spreadsheet to record findings for his school science project. He is recording the heights of six different bean plants.
a. Write a formula to accurately return the Week's Growth to cell H6. 1 mark =G6-B6 Let's hope the examiner's report gets it right too! Last year, they didn't. State average was 0.5 =G6-B6 was the most common accepted formula. Other correct formulas were also accepted.
State average was 1.1 Frank should not protect C6 to G11 because these are the cells where Frank needs to enter data.
Convention / Explanation
I was hoping they'd do a nice 3D spreadsheet reference question, burrowing through the 8 weeks' worksheets to get grand totals. No such luck. State average was 1.0 Many students correctly identified a convention used in the spreadsheet and explained how it enhanced communication to other users. Examples included: d. Frank has presented his findings from the spreadsheet for the week 13Sep10 in the graph shown. Add three features to complete the graph and enhance its effectiveness. 3 marks.
State average was 1.9 Three features needed to enhance the effectiveness of the graph were: End of section B |
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Overall - A couple of badly worded questions that did affect the quality of answers:
The database/website CMS question was a bit of a dog. Some really dodgy ethics questions - and too many of them. One is more than enough, I reckon. The answer to 5B was a defininite bad error. It felt like a comfortable exam: challenging enough to pay attention to, not too easy, not too hard, a good balance of hard/soft questions. |
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Created 10 November 2010
Last changed: March 9, 2022 11:34 AM
VCE Applied Computing Notes © Mark Kelly 2001-
Original Content © Mark Kelly 2010
Images and questions © Victorian Curriculum
and Assessment Authority 2010.
Reproduced here with permission.
