The Exam

So, just wrote and what not, just wondering if I am the only one who found a few things odd:

With the MCQs, did anyone else find a lot of "corner case" questions, or otherwise put, questions from the shadows of the textbook? There were a lot that one was able to work out, but they didn't exactly fall into the "summarize this" category of the work load.

With the column match, what did y'all say for the IPX question?

With the T&F (3.3-3.5), how can you say that a question is true or false? Only a statement can be true or false; a question needs an answer. I found this very odd and frankly struggled to put it in a way that may have been deemed acceptable in marking.

The other questions were fine, other than the mark allocations being very low.

I must say I found this exam to be a lot more difficult than I initially expected, anyone else feel the same?

I feel exactly the same way.

I feel that questions were asked about intricacies and fine details that one tends to read over and not "study".
A lot of the MCQs were rather confusing.
The more "important" work of ISDL,DSL,FDDI,ATM,SONET,Token Ring, Ethernet, Frame Relay, VoIP, TCP/IP core protocols, most sections on connectivity devices were not even asked in the paper.

I found this one rather difficult.
I am a bit disappointed with regards to the amount of time and effort that I put into studying the sections and the work that was asked.

I have already e-mailed the lecturers concerning 3.3 - 3.5 and the response was as follows:

Dear Student



Question 3 was meant to be answered as below but I do understand your query and will mark this question even if students have answered it and not stated True of False.



3.3
Would a high-layer switch be appropriate for use on a small, contained LAN or to connect a group of end users to the network?

Page 255
False. Higher-layer switches can cost three times more than Layer 2 switches and are typically used as part of a network's backboneü.

3.4
On a wireless network, do VLANs (Virtual Local Area Networks) allow mobile clients to move from one access point’s range to another without losing network functionality or having to re-authenticate with the network?

Page 254
True.

3.5
In a VLAN, ports need to reside on the same switch segment?

Page 253
False. VLANs can include ports from more than one switch or segmentü.



I found Question 3.3 rather ambiguous...I feel that it could have been interpreted in 2 different ways. I don't know if anyone will understand what exactly I am trying to state but this is what I e-mailed to the lecturer:

Also, looking at Question 3.3, if it is taken to be a question (one that should be answered in sentence format), it is ambiguous.

I do not remember the exact wording of the question but it could have been interpreted in two ways:



1. 'Can a higher Layer switch be used to connect a small LAN, or a group of end users? '

The first interpretation could be to explain whether or not a higher layer switch could be used to connect a small LAN or group of end users.



2. The second interpretation is one of OPTION. One could interpret the question as could a higher Layer switch be used to connect a small LAN? or could it be used to connect a group of end users? ... with the answer being one of the two options ( used to connect small LAN or used to connect group of end users).

Unfortunately I know that I did not do too well in this paper.

I hope that we all pass.

Yeah, question 3 floored me too. I even paged to the Afrikaans section to check if the questions there were phrased differently.

The MCQ's were quite different from the ones throughout the year too. Plus I spent all my time learning the networking stuff and skimmed over the project management side of things - bad decision there!

Good luck for the rest of your papers

man, that paper was kaaaaak! I know that I wouldn't have done better if I put more effort in. That paper was "corner case central"! I also complained in my answer that that 3.3 was ambiguous. I must add that I took very little away from this module. Who the hell cares about IPX anyway? WINS anyone?? I could also take a fat textbook and pick little factoids out at random! I've gone into this silly module with a distinction year mark, despite the most lazy, atrocious marking of my final assignment. I hope I just get 50% at the year end

Yea I feel the same, a 50% would do the trick, also sitting with what I think is a 95% year mark. I think this was one hell of a let down.

Rick Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> man, that paper was kaaaaak! I know that I
> wouldn't have done better if I put more effort in.
> That paper was "corner case central"! I also
> complained in my answer that that 3.3 was
> ambiguous. I must add that I took very little
> away from this module. Who the hell cares about
> IPX anyway? WINS anyone?? I could also take a fat
> textbook and pick little factoids out at random!
> I've gone into this silly module with a
> distinction year mark, despite the most lazy,
> atrocious marking of my final assignment. I hope
> I just get 50% at the year end

Snap on this side.

I was telling my wife this after how "corner case" this paper was this afternoon. I just hope I pass.

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Don't Assume Everything is a Nail Just Because You Have a Really Big Hammer

same here, i 50% will do me good.
i wish u all the best and hope that all of us passed it.

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In a long journey, even a matchstick is heavy...

Yep, I agree with all that is said above. The MCQ questions were hard because of all the multiple options questions.
I also disagree with how they can set a paper that asks questions about technologies that are not relevant to South Africa.
Anyway, perhaps they say the bigger picture is what is needed. Even still, I would have thought that the intricacies of the OSI model would definately be asked. I guess the OSI model isnt nb in networking...

And with the T/F questions... 3.3 I said "this is not a true/false question" and answered the question. Did the same with question 3.4. Answering those with true or false would not make semantic sense. Neither would answering any qualitative question with a quantative answer. Question 3.5 however, if you knocked off the question mark at the end, would make sense if you answered T/F.

I see from above that even after pointing out to the lecturer that a question is not a statement, they still dont get it.

it's called "copy/paste" lecturing

.

How did y'all do for this paper?

Crrrap!!
i went in with a 33% year mark, due to work sacrifices. . .
but @ least I got a supp.