Exam Post-Mortem - For Real This Time

So, what you guys think?

I'm quite chuffed. I know it was a very theory based paper, but thought it was quite nice. I think knowing the UML helped a lot, as well as reading Wikipedia, DoFactory and Willy's blog (how did you know Willy? )

I'll just repost what I posted in the other thread

I thought it went ok, the last question on regular expressions was a surprise, was not expecting that but I managed to come up with something that should be worth a few marks at least.
I completely messed up the Observer pattern question
It was interesting to me that there was so little code to be written, even the 2009 paper had more. But yeah, I'm not complaining, not a big fan of writing code on paper under pressure.

Anyway, 2 down, 5 to go and I'll hopefully have my degree

I went through the regex stuff quite a bit, mainly because that was one of the few things Ezust explained well and I've always wanted to understand it more. What happened with the observer your side? 6 left for me for that degree now. Woop woop. The next monster? COS351.

And here I thought that they wouldn't ask about regex because it was explained so well
Well first it took me a good 5 minutes to think of a different metaphor for the pattern, I first thought about a TV broadcast but thought it was too close to the example they gave us. I also didn't mention anything about QEvent or it's derived classes, but I did speak about signals and slots, so perhaps I didn't mess it up as bad as I thought.

I found the exam very difficult- maybe because I struggled with cos311...

Well I expected something far worse! I think I might just pass this one. Didn't finish though - Missed out on the last question.

Hey guys ! I thought the exams was quite reasonable. Also mumbled a lot on the last question, but other than that I think I'm good. Think the fact that they had 9 marks out of 75 on regular expression theory is a bit ridiculous though. Thats the kind of stuff you print out and put on your wall for when you need it. Ah well 6 more and I'm done and hopefully also a degree! Good luck for the rest of the exams people!

Not as bad as I was expecting, although I would have appreciated more design pattern based questions as opposed to kak on QTimer/QThread/QRexExp. I didn't even touch QRexExp - 9 bloody marks.
The patterns related questions weren't bad.
6 to go.

Ya, I would have preferred 9 marks on singleton I think it went ok...just want enough to pass this one. 1 down, 2 to go till degree is in the bag

The exam was different to what I was expecting - much less code to write; but I am happy because I found it much easier than I expected. Finished the paper is 1h20 mins - maybe because I thought there would be time issues so was rushing through questions.. Last question I feel was too much for regex and I hope my guessing got me some marks.. This is me and unisa good-bye as it was my LAST EXAM for my degree. sooooo stocked!!!

Best of luck to all of you with more exams this year and courses next year.. Work though it - its worth it for sure!!!!

I hope there are a few of you who hated it?
Went too slowly in beginning and didnt like any of it, concentrated too much on learning the patterns from the past papers so ignored the others

Oh well maybe writing supp in Jan, are there supps? Never had to do one before?

hmm, to be honest,in my experience with Unisa exams, sometimes the least expected questions come out, i was struggling with the programming questions as i had so many ideas/variables to write, that eventually time was running, and I just stuck to what i could write. as for theory, i expected more theory like what framework/API is, what Qt4 is, antipattern examples & explanation/parent vs base classes/definitions/model view architecture/how does Qt4 support reflective programming! they should have helped us a little bit!!! - i mean I learnt so much theory, my head was falling off before the paper as they did say quite a bit would be theory and they said the programming qu would be straight out of the textbook or very easy! anyway i think it was not that bad, i mean i attempted every question, not 100% though, im just hoping and praying that i pass - 50% is what i need! funny enough regex question i really didnt think would come out! lol, well thats exams for you, you can know so much, but crash under pressure!!! and why did we have to draw two UML diagrams!! the one with the Strategy patterm, i didnt draw a UML diagram. i pray the marking of the papers is a little lenient with part marks. i really do not want to write a SUPP! its so demotivating, especially when i only HAD TO WRITE THIS ONE EXAM TO GET MY DEGREE!

I guess I'm among the few that didn't really like the paper. The questions were just in a format I completely didn't expect. Especially the difference between the singleton and the monostate and when not to use the observer. I think I also overthought all my answers so I landed up running out of time in the end. I feel like I could have done so much better at that...

Oh well, gotta get on with the next one - INF303 in just over a week.

rez!if u found it hard, imagine me! anyway as i said, im praying like you wont believe that passed! thats all!

Yeah... I am one of the people that hated the exam. I also concentrated on patterns and the past exams (which were totally different to this year's exam) because I don't really grasp some of the concepts in the book- or actually the book does not give enough code to completely understand.
I think I might also end up with a supp if I am very lucky- how much do you need to get a supp?
Also, if you get a supp do you HAVE to write it at the same venue?... the reason i ask is because I'm relocating in December and there is no way I'll be able to make it to the venue I am writing at now.
If you do change venues for supplementaries, how do you go about it? Has anyone else experienced this problem where they could only write the supp at a different venue?

I thought the exam was not that bad, I just might pass!

The regex stuff was totally unexpected, I memorized a few examples, but it did not help me.
I hope the markers are lenient, I need to pass this...

One down 3 to go, then I'm done with my degree!!

It would appear as though who ever set up the paper went about looking for obscure crap to try and catch people out - which is unnecessary.
Compare the paper to the assignments and there is no obvious relationship.
I get the questions on where and how to apply the different patterns, even the comparison between a process and a thread. But where not to apply a pattern and the comparison between 2 patterns is just a little sneaky.
But, then again, how were they to make it different than last year's paper?