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(AQA) CPT5 Exam [24/01/2007]

Has anyone else got this paper coming up?

I'm fairly confident with the unit, our teacher analysed the last 6 or 7 exam papers and made a prediction as to what is likely to come up in this one.

Out of all the topics, I'd say the only ones I struggle with are Normalization and Network Addressing (subnets, gateways blah blah).

Can anyone help explain the two areas I mentioned, and any others that you guys might be struggling with.

Good luck lads.

Reply 1

carltaylor1

Normalisation - To reduce data redundancy and the chances of data becoming inconsistent.

First Normal Form: Eliminates repeating fields by putting each into a seperate table and connecting them with a one to many relationship.

Second Normal Form: Eliminates dependencies on a partial key by putting the fields into a seperate table from those that are dependent on the whole key

Third Normal Form: Elimanates dependencies on non-key fields by putting them in a seperate table. At this stage, all non key fields are dependent on the key, the whole key and nothing but the key

Could you share your predictions on the exam please?

Reply 2

TOSCS

As far as Normalization goes, what sort of question can we expect?

'Why isn't this table normalized?' ?
'Normalize this table' ?
'In what Normal Form is this table?' ?
'What is Normalization' ?

I'll type em up now.

Reply 3

carltaylor1

Yes, they won't expect us to normalise a table at each level just to normalise it in 3rd normal form.
Can't think of any others

Reply 4

TOSCS

Documentation - User, operations, maintenance, installation manuals.

Input/Output devices -unusual/complicated inputs e.g touch-screen, biometric security e.g finger-print scanner

DBMS - what it is, what it eliminates (unproductive maintenance)

Software - macros, templates and mail merge.

Investigation - methods of data gathering: observation, interview, questionnaire, examine existing documents

Systems flow charts - probably have to fill in the blanks on one.

DDL - name a command e.g CREATE, ALTER, TRUNCATE

DML - write a SQL query using SELECT, FROM, WHERE, SORT BY Asc/Desc

Normalization - ibid

HTML - draw a web page (may include basic ASP, passing variables through forms etc)

Network addressing - IPs and all that malarkey.

Hubs/Switches - What each does, why a switch is better.

Reply 5

carltaylor1

LOL I like drawing the HTML ones, easy 5 marks!

Reply 6

TOSCS

To be honest, if those predictions are right, this exam should be a piece of piss.

Only place I can see marks being dropped is silly errors in the DML queries or in normalization.

What I generally find with Computing exams is what their asking is pretty easy, I know a good deal of it. It's how they ask it that really throws me. I was doing a past-paper there a few days ago and I had to describe how a touch-screen works, but it was worded in the most ridiculous way you could imagine (cannae remember it lol)

Reply 7

TOSCS

carltaylor1

LOL I like drawing the HTML ones, easy 5 marks!

lol yeah if you make websites/work with HTML it's the easiest question in the exam.

If you find yourself with time to kill and/or you're a nerd, try drawing a detailed Firefox window around the web page >_>

Reply 8

carltaylor1

Computing is the only exam i know of where everyone finishes at least 15 mins early :-)

Have you got the correct definition of unproductive maintenance ?

Reply 9

TOSCS

Well the two major problems of the database (minus DBMS) concept were:

Unproductive maintenance - programs were still dependent on the structure of the data, so that when one department needed to add a new field to a particular file, all other programs accessing that file had to be changed.

Lack or security - all the data in the DB was accessible by all applications.

DBMS improves security and eliminates unproductive maintenance.

Reply 10

carltaylor1

Alright cheers, I'll be on later today if you want to discuss anything. Laterz

Reply 11

K.O.S

done the exam in the summer. it was quite a tough one imo so this one should be easier.

for example im rubbish with HTML and this time they showed a web page and u had to do the code for it. instead of the other way round which we all know is easy.

also it asked very vague questions i thought and asked to do a whole DDL code rather than just an example of one line

Reply 12

TOSCS

Webpage to HTML should be easy enough, although there's quite a few ways you can code for the same design... e.g <h1>Header</h1> could look the same as <span class="bigtext">Header</span> but that's just me being pedantic :biggrin:

What was the DDL question do you remember?

Reply 13

carltaylor1

Grr I'm not bothered about writing HTML but I don't realy want to be writing lines of DDL :-(. Not seen questions like this on any other papers though. You think it's true?

Oh and BTW goodluck for tomorrow

Reply 14

TOSCS

You got msn? mines in my profile here, if you wanna add us.

Reply 15

carltaylor1

How many hostids on a subnet of 255.255.255.0 and how could this be increasedon an ethernet

Reply 16

michaelbenson

carltaylor1

How many hostids on a subnet of 255.255.255.0 and how could this be increasedon an ethernet

I mentioned 1-254 Host ID (not taking into account those already reserved), but was a little stumped by the "increase the amount of Host IDs" one, and ended up just blabbing about creating an additional segment and connecting the two together giving each a different Network ID but more Host IDs :p: