F451 and F452 mock exams after Easter

We will have two mock exams the week we come back after Easter, they will both happen in the same week (you're proper ones will be like this). The days will be different depending on which block you are taught in:

A block

F451 Theory paper will be on Monday afternoon 15th April
F452 programming and logic paper will be split over Wednesday 17th April and Thursday 18th April

E block

F452 programming and logic paper will be split over Monday 15th April and Wednesday 17th April
F451 Theory paper will be on Friday afternoon 19th April

This will then give me some time over the weekend to mark the papers so we can go through them the following week.

Please make sure you are working towards real revision for these papers, you will get little information about your progress if you say to yourself "I did bad because I didn't revise properly".

Homework Twelve : Review of exam question

Homework is due on Wednesday 20th March 2013.

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 F452 Jan 2013 paper 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.

You have the mark scheme but it is also available on the F452 page of the Intranet (Jan 2013)

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?

Conclude your report by highlighting one or two key things that you can target to make a difference next time you do a paper. 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.

Work to do Monday 4th March 2013

Unfortunately I will not be in on Monday.

A block need to make a start on the remaining topics for the Social implications, we have already done the environmental aspects from this section of the theory course. Get back into your groups and look at the 3.1.6 Social implications notes (under the F451 Computer fundamentals section) and tackle the remaining topics.

• Working patterns
• Privacy and confidentiality of data
• Legislation
• Access to Information and Communication technology

Make sure you split the work across members of the group so you don't duplicate each other. Add information to your blogs/tumbler sites.

You will be continuing this work on Tuesday.

E Block need to continue their work on their Social implications blogs.

Could you also all sign into workshop (click the Workshop Sign link in the Actions section of the Dashboard on the ICT intranet page).