AQA computing CPT3 Village hall coursework

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so far i am finding cpt2 quite difficult 2 revise. Stuff about spreadsheets, database, packages, data integrity is cool for me to understand but i think i will do well with cpt1 more than cpt2. Still got 2 more days 2 try and revise it all.

Reply 1021

lapsaJ

What bits you struggling on? I found that after doing ALL the past papers I was fine. Did them all in one go and am now pretty confident.

Reply 1022

manutd2k

i dont really understand how you can estimate the size of a record. After going through cpt2 again its pretty kool.

Reply 1023

michaelbenson

jazznaz

Good point, CPT3 was definitely very straightforward... ^^

Although having said that I've seen the January paper, and there was a question on encryption that I've not seen on any other paper before (using a grid to perform a transposition cipher), it wasn't a particularly difficult question, but I'll bet it caught some people out just because it was so different...

The rest was fairly straightforward though, although there was a long question about deleting a record from a sequential file (the algorithm required), hence I've been beefing up on my algorithm knowledge in the hope that something similar will come up... :smile:

Open File A and File B
Start at Beginning of File A
Collect input data
If A > B Then
Write record to File B
End If
Increment to next record
Close Flie A and B

I know it doesn't make any sense, but with those sort of questions you can actually get marks for just stating Open File, or Start at Beginning. They are really quite predictable in some ways. BTW i don't mean to come off as some algorithm-know-it-all, just that we did alot of work on algorithms in lessons with our teacher and these where the general points he repetitively reinforced.

Reply 1024

lapsaJ

michaelbenson

I got caught out on that silly little encryption question. Caught me completely off gaurd, however when i got a photocopy of my paper back it turned out that i got full marks on that ma,moth algorithm last question which cheered me up now end. Just got to remember your mind numbing;

I know it doesn't make any sense, but with those sort of questions you can actually get marks for just stating Open File, or Start at Beginning. They are really quite predictable in some ways. BTW i don't mean to come off as some algorithm-know-it-all, just that we did alot of work on algorithms in lessons with our teacher and these where the general points he repetitively reinforced.

And you got a D?

Reply 1025

michaelbenson

lapsaJ

And you got a D?

Yup. There was another question somewhere else on Control and Hash Totals, which our teacher hadn't covered and ended up meaning that we lost alot of marks in the end. Besides my examination technique was shockingly bad at the time, i was just rambling one about irrelevant information and just not being specific enough. However, Michael the exam fighting machine is back and re-fueled for exam success :biggrin:

Reply 1026

manutd2k

michael, can you remember any particular questions that were in the jan cpt1. Were most of the questions in old past papers like name 3 types of operating software etc etc

Reply 1027

michaelbenson

Nope, most of the questions where very programming intensive. For example, we were expected to analyse a particular built-in function and predict the appropriate output when certain items where inserted into this function.

You had to be able to differentiate between your machine code, assembly language, and high level languages. And there was an evil question which was "In addition to the executable file, what output could the software referred to in part (d) [ASSEMBLER] produce?". You had to be able to interpret what is conventionally accepted as "good" and "bad" code. And you had to write two declaration statements in a programming language of your choice.

Then there where your general questions on binary representation, sound, networking, data transmission, the internet, what is "information", and translating code.