This was popular last year, so here it is again.
Right you have one week to go. I know a lot of you still have Maths and Physics to get through but you need to focus on Computing. Here is what I would do with a week to go.
- I wouldn’t study outside – its hot and full of distractions
- I would start at 9 and do the following
- Past Paper
- Break
- Marking Past Paper
- Break down wrong answers into core and non core (using the list below – core is likely to come up the exam)
- Revise core
- Lunch
- Revise core
- Break (its about 2pm if the above tasks took you 2hr for the paper and 30 mins a task)
- Revise non core answers
- Look over the topics from the units by picking a half dozen topics each day.
- Download this document. and use this as the basis for some questions on the topics I found hard, as well as, using it to aid revision of the topics in the units (List of Topics at bottom)
- Use the blog, Scholar and other school’s notes to learn the core information I am not sure about.
- I would learn the two images below and be able to describe and compare each of the aditdem elements with each other – E.g. what is the difference between Procedural and Event Driven Languages?
- I would look over and memorise the standard algorithms
- I would buy a £1 calculator that does binary and learn how to use it.
- If I was tired, I would take a break and I would cut down on caffeine.
- I would give my mobile to my parents when I was studying and get it back at breaks (when I was your age this was not an option
)
The above is not a roadmap to success! However, it might help get you the marks you need to change a grade.
Good luck in the exam! Remember ask questions here or to my email account, I will be checking them over the coming week and will try and get a response out ASAP. If you are finding it too warm to study, the class room has air con and I’m sure I could squeeze you in at a desk.
Core – likely to come up in the exam
Computer Systems
- Systems
- application based tests
- Bit map graphics
- CCD
- fetch execute cycle
- file, print and web servers
- FLOPS
- hub, switch, router
- Interface functions
- MIPS
- Network topologies
- operating system functions
- peer to peer Vs client server
- RGB
- software compatibility issues
- standard file formats
- Two’s complement
- utility programs
- Vector graphics
- virus software detection techniques
- Viruses – types, code actions
Software Development
- by value and by reference
- local and global variables
- concatenation and substrings
- design notations
- Evaluation – robustness, reliability, portability, efficiency and maintainability
- iterative
- macros
- maintenance
- module library
- one-dimensional arrays
- personnel
- procedural, declarative and event-driven
- real, integer and boolean variables
- Scope
- scripting languages
- software specification
- stages
- standard algorithms
Multimedia
- Authoring software
- Bluetooth
- CLUT
- codec and container file
- dithering
- MIDI
- MPEG
- PCM, ADPCM
- RAW, RIFF
- RLE, LZW
- Sound file size
- vector graphics
- Video file size
- anti-aliasing
- re-sampling
Unit / Topic
| Computer Systems | |
| Data representation | |
| Computer structure | |
| Peripherals | |
| Networking | |
| Computer software | |
| Software Development | |
| Software development process | |
| Software development languages and environments | |
| High level programming language constructs | |
| Standard algorithms | |
| Multimedia Technology | |
| Development process for multimedia applications | |
| Bit-mapped graphic data | |
| Digitised sound data | |
| Video data | |
| Vector graphics data | |
| Synthesised sound data | |
| Implications of the use of multimedia technology |
