[Onee-chan]

Hi!

I'm doing D1 in a few weeks time and really need some advice! I always seem to make silly mistakes in the practice papers but don't have enough time to thoroughly check over it.

Does anyone have any good tips? I realised that D1 is supposed to be an "easy" exam, so sorry if this is trivial.

Thanks,

Onee-chan

[Hitman3161]

Hi, Im doing D1 soon as well, try to memorise and learn all of the basic algorithms e.g. kruskal's, Prim's, Dijkstra's etc as this should bag you at least 50-60 marks. The higher level questions are designed to test your understanding of the algorithms but theie not worth many marks in the exam. Yeah D1 is supposed to be easy but then again its boring an half the time you cannot motivate yourself to learn it if your like me lol , if your making mistakes never re-trace your steps just sart again cause your find yourselff in loop holes of wrong working and waste a lot of time in the exam. So like i said concentrate on learning the algorithms first then once your happy an if you've got time do a bit more background reading into the algorithms.

[Onee-chan]

(Original post by Hitman3161)
Hi, Im doing D1 soon as well, try to memorise and learn all of the basic algorithms e.g. kruskal's, Prim's, Dijkstra's etc as this should bag you at least 50-60 marks. The higher level questions are designed to test your understanding of the algorithms but theie not worth many marks in the exam. Yeah D1 is supposed to be easy but then again its boring an half the time you cannot motivate yourself to learn it if your like me lol , if your making mistakes never re-trace your steps just sart again cause your find yourselff in loop holes of wrong working and waste a lot of time in the exam. So like i said concentrate on learning the algorithms first then once your happy an if you've got time do a bit more background reading into the algorithms.

Exactly! There are so many algorithms to learn (and let's not even start on definition questions...)

The main problem for me though is that because the grade boundaries are so high you practically need >71 (I think) to get above 90 ums! So can't really afford to make silly mistakes.

I guess I'll just work slowly and hope to get it spot on the first time? Or work backwards and get the long questions out of the way?

(Original post by unlimitedpaper)
hi
a good past paper place is
unlimitedpapers.co.uk

many d1 papers with anwer booklets

Thanks!

[Rhiannan94]

(Original post by Onee-chan)
The main problem for me though is that because the grade boundaries are so high you practically need >71 (I think) to get above 90 ums! So can't really afford to make silly mistakes.

I'm retaking D1 next week and started revising today, forgot how many things there are that you have to remember that can make a difference! I'm so annoyed that I have to retake it, I got 69/75 in January yet that was only 80 UMS marks.

[Onee-chan]

(Original post by Rhiannan94)
I'm retaking D1 next week and started revising today, forgot how many things there are that you have to remember that can make a difference! I'm so annoyed that I have to retake it, I got 69/75 in January yet that was only 80 UMS marks.

Wow! That's actually ridiculous!!! The raw mark is amazing and > 90% to say the least.

If the grade boundaries are so high, surely it suggests that there are quite a few people getting 100%? How the hell do they do it! :s