B211 Internet Computing - Exam Information

Exam Information 2002

Time and Venue

Check the official University timetable here.

Duration

You have 3 hours to complete the exam, not including 15 minutes reading time at the beginning.

Past Years' Exams

The exam in 2001 is very relevant, and the format is almost exactly the same (except for the number of questions in Part III). The actual questions will of course be totally different.

The exam in 1999 and 2000 are not relevant. The exam format have changed quite considerably. The unit did not exist prior to 1999.

Exam Format

The exam questions total 100 marks.

Section I: News (5 marks)

5 questions of 1 mark each. Answer ALL questions.

The questions will be in a form similar to the questions given in the Good News Week self-tests. The news articles comes from the IT section of Tuesday's the Australian newspaper, from the beginning of the semester to week 10, when I set the exam questions.

Section II: Short Answers (60 marks)

30 questions of 2 marks each. Answer ALL questions.

Section III: Long Answers (35 marks)

10 questions of 5 marks each. Answer 7 of the 10 questions.

You may select ANY 7 questions, but list the 7 questions on the page at the beginning of Section III (see sample exam). If you do not list them, the first 7 questions answered will be assessed.

Students should answer the questions in the space provided below the questions.

Hint: The exam is actually quite short for a 3-hour exam. I believe many students will finish ahead of time. If you are slow and see many students leaving the exam hall early, do not rush. Use up all your time if you have to. There are no bonus marks for finishing early.

Number of questions from each lecture topic

As a guide on which lecture topic you should concentrate on, here are how the questions are distributed according to the topics:

Section I:

Not applicable.

Section II:

Topic 1: 10 marks
Topic 2 (excluding Javascript and PHP programming):10 marks
Topic 3: 10 marks
Topic 4: 10 marks
Topic 5: 6 marks
Topic 6: 4 marks
Practicals (lab exercises and assignment 2, including Javascript and PHP programming):10 marks

Section III:

Topic 1: 5 marks
Topic 2: 15 marks
Topic 3: 10 marks
Topic 4: 10 marks
Topic 5: 0
Topic 6: 5 marks
Practicals (lab exercises and assignment 2, including Javascript and PHP programming): 5 marks

Frequenly Asked Questions

Q: Will we be asked to write programming code in the exam?
A: No. But you will be asked to explain code, or describe how code will behave with certain inputs. These questions are part of "Practicals" listed above.

Q: Do we have to memorize acronyms?
A: You have to know the following important ones: TCP, IP, DNS, HTML, XHTML, CGI, HTTP, URL, and XML. Beyond that, I will not expect you to memorize all the other acronyms used in this unit. However, I may still use acronyms in a question, without requiring you to expand it. Example question: "How can FTP be used in web site development?". Example answer: "To upload web pages and scripts to the server where the web site is". In this case, you don't need to expand the acronym "FTP". ANother example question: "What is ICP used for?". Answer: "Proxy caching".

Q: How important is studying the lecture notes?
A: Critical! In the case where you know and understand all material in the lecture notes (and you read, understand, and answer the exam questions carefully), you will probably get a high grade for the exam.

Q: How much is the exam worth?
A: 50% of your final agregate mark for the unit, but you MUST pass the exam to pass the unit. See the unit assessment description.

Q: For answering Section I, do I need to be up-to-date with the news articles right up to the exam date?
A: No. I set the exam questions in week 10, so there will not be articles from after week 10.

Q: How many questions from pass year exams will come out in this year's exam?
A: Very few. But although most of the questions will not be exactly the same, there could possibly be very similar questions, .

Q: How can I pass the exam without studying?
A: You can't.

Exam Consultations and Further Queries

I would be more than happy to meet any student or groups who are keen enough to do some revision or need some extra tutoring on the unit materials before the exam. Make sure you first go through your basic study as guided by information above. Then contact me by email to arrange times to meet.

If you have further questions, the best way is to post to the "Exam Queries" group in the discussion forum. If you don't feel comfortable posting, you can ask me by direct email. But be aware that I will copy the email with my reply to the discussion for the benefit of all students. I will remove the name of the sender, of course. If you do not wish me to copy your questions to forum, please indicate so in your email.

H.L. Hiew
Unit Coordinator