Exam Prep

[xlaiyn]

I don't know about you guys, but I'm absolutely terrified. I went from having plenty of confidence with all the practice exams to doing one in particular and panicking because it seemed significantly harder than the others. Nevertheless, I managed to acquire a score of around 85%, but I keep drilling into my head that that's not good enough. How are you guys going for exam preparation? What are you all doing to prepare? And how do you think the exam will go?

[no steez]

I have 4 exams in the first 3 days, so next friday I will start my software development study.
I'm going to be working really hard to try get a 40+, unfortunately there aren't many practice papers floating around...

[MJRomeo81]

Was the tough exam a VCAA paper?

There aren't that many good SD papers out there. I think the best revision is sitting the 2011 & 2012 VCAA papers under exam conditions.

[lala1911]

True MJRomeo. Although I'm doing Apps, I don't find many I.T papers useful. A lot of them fail to follow the VCAA format and they don't follow the same sort of topics that VCAA do.

I've been happy just doing the past vcaa ones, they are much more useful than any company ones.

[no steez]

My teacher was the author of the SD checkpoints, so I have a digital copy somewhere.
However 40% of the questions aren't relevant no more, but I'll do these after completing all the VCAA papers

[Checkmate]

There were a couple things I was shaky on, desk check, stacks, searches but in the end, the one thing I'm worried about is how much the algorithm question will step up.

[xlaiyn]

I have 4 exams in the first 3 days, so next friday I will start my software development study.
I'm going to be working really hard to try get a 40+, unfortunately there aren't many practice papers floating around...

I've noticed that! I've been trying to just go back through the text book, too, but it's becoming a pain in the ass because like no steez and Lala1911 both said, the other exams made by third parties aren't too great. :/
Good luck though, dude!

Was the tough exam a VCAA paper?

There aren't that many good SD papers out there. I think the best revision is sitting the 2011 & 2012 VCAA papers under exam conditions.

Nope! I can't quite recall which one it was, but it was one that a friend of mine had acquired from a friend of his who did the course last year. I'm beginning to think just sitting the VCAA ones is my only choice, but the problem is I've done them so many times that I've basically memorised the answers, and that's not what I'm going for.

There were a couple things I was shaky on, desk check, stacks, searches but in the end, the one thing I'm worried about is how much the algorithm question will step up.

As am I, actually. I'm a little concerned that the algorithm question will confuse the shit out of me. Under stress I misread things all the time, and I have to go and get my eyes checked again because the prescription on my glasses no longer helps me see clearly, so that might help too.

Although, desk check and stacks confused me for a while as well. I end up getting the right answer, but then I stare at the question and wonder how I got there. Ahhh.