[Informatics] A Friday Reflection or two on exam rules

[Garth, Lucas A]

Hi

In all seriousness, the Informatics exam moved from assessing 20 MCQs and around 10 short answers (as per IT Apps in previous Study Design), to now 20 MCQs and 20 short answers.  Plus more reading in the form of a case study.

18 pages last year to 29

Significantly more coverage of the content (breadth) – I think depth has hardly changed.

I think it was a challenge for my weaker English students this year and I’m going to need to devise strategies to mitigate for next year involving more timed practice sessions.

Lucas
Lalor SC

From: informatics-bounces at edulists.com.au [mailto:informatics-bounces at edulists.com.au] On Behalf Of Roland Gesthuizen
Sent: Friday, 18 November 2016 1:40 PM
To: Year 12 VCE Informatics Teachers' Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Informatics] A Friday Reflection or two on exam rules

The extra pages would perhaps be the case study and the cunning addition of a "this page intentionally left blank" note.

You can read about this here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentionally_blank_page

And join the campaign to include more blank pages on the web  http://www.this-page-intentionally-left-blank.org

On 18 November 2016 at 13:11, Mark <mark at vceit.com<mailto:mark at vceit.com>> wrote:
First...

Since 2002, The rules on the covers of IPM/ITA/Info exams have all forbidden the use of "white out liquid/tape".
Since 2015, this has been changed to "correction fluid/tape".
I wonder whether the trademark owners of "WiteOut" had a quiet word with VCAA.

Second...

A couple of years ago I was asking what would happen if a student was asked for X items, and then provided more than X. Would the marker ignore any answer beyond the number asked for?

The general consensus was that markers would read on and perhaps give credit to superfluous information.

I've just found what caused my initial query to be sparked...

In the IPM exam of 2000, the rules on the cover of the exam say: "Choices are provided within questions 3,4,11, and 13e. Answer only the state number of choices. Any extra answers will not be awarded marks."

I knew my nagging doubt had to come from somewhere.

Note - this rule was not repeated in any exam thereafter.

VCAA has not publicly repeated nor repudiated the policy of reading/ignoring answers that exceed the quantity requested. It would be good if they did.

Fun fact 1: In the 2000 IPM exam there was no multiple choice or case study, and the exam was worth 60 marks.

Fun Fact 2: Multiple choice arrived in 2003.

Fun Fact 3: The 2000 IPM exam was 18 pages long. The 2016 Info exam was 29 pages long.

OK. I might be stretching the definition of "fun".

Regards,
Mark


--

Mark Kelly

mark at vceit.com<mailto:mark at vceit.com>
http://vceit.com

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Roland Gesthuizen
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