AQA Computer Science

Hi, I just started the AS course and to be honest I'm enjoying myself .Apparently there is a massive coursework to do in Y13. A lot of people have been telling me its the longest thing ever, is it really?
What do you do in it? and approx how many words did you write?
Lol Thank you for your feedback

Hey there, my understanding is that the spec has changed quite a bit this year so much of what you'll have heard is likely about the old spec back when it was still called the 'Computing' A-Level. On the old course there was indeed a pretty hefty coursework task with it! I have very little experience with the new spec but I believe it's not changed too much from what it used to be. However if anyone else comes in here with more knowledge than me, listen to them instead So just task this as a disclaimer that my experiences may be a teeny bit out of date.

So the coursework I did in 2010-12 was a big practical programming task worth 20% of the A-Level, being marked out of 75 marks. The new task is also a practical programming task, and worth the same percentage of the A-Level with the same marking scale so I imagine it's actually a pretty similar task.

What I had to do was basically develop big piece of software from scratch, working through the entire development cycle in the process, and writing a report on it. You'd start by finding a client (most people picked a teacher) and analysing a problem they have that they want you to fix programmatically. You'd then produce a sort of design document for the program - outlining what you aim to achieve and how to do that. You'd be expected to do a bit of research here, surveying affected members on what they want you to achieve for instance. Then you actually get to build the program which is where you'll spend most of your time! Finally you'd have to write up all of your testing, system maintenance and evaluation.

I made an AS Further Maths revision tool. It would let you choose a topic and get randomly chosen past exam question on it which you could then self-mark with the appropriate mark scheme. Better yet, you could do my custom made exercises which would change every time through randomisation of the numbers in the questions - and be automatically marked I even threw in a pupil/ teacher messaging system for good measure. At your point in the course this stuff probably sounds quite scary but don't worry because it's so much easier than it sounds

It was definitely a lot of work, and my Easter was rammed because of it. But it was also very rewarding so I wouldn't be too worried about it. Once you get your way through it, you feel like you've accomplished a fair bit. I'd also say that it's not hard stuff, there's just quite a lot of it. What I always say is that any A-Level worth having takes a lot of work!

My problem was that I did too much for it. I got very carried away and passionate about what I was making. My final report (which to be fair included a lot of repetitive source code and testing results) came to 117,000 words! I think most people shyed short of 20-50k. Over an entire year that isn't too bad, this post of mine is at least 500 for instance