Exam post mortem

So, how did it go? Wish I had gone through some more theory! Those questions weren't as crazy as I had expected.
I probably screw up Q4 I think. Could not get my processes to be safely granted (even after re-checking more than once)

The exam worked out pretty well for me. It was just a bit of a rush to cover all the questions and I didn't get to finish the last question. Then again, I would have had to invent half of the answer to it, so I really can't complain.

The 'sums' was exactly as I expected and I managed to answer a fair bit of the theory questions too - I thought those questions were mostly quite basic (except for q6). Could really have been much worse . Sheesh, I panicked so much about all the theory they could have asked if they wanted..

Best of all - this was the last credit I needed for my degree. How awesome is that??!!

Congrats Marina!

Congrats Marina... Now you off to fetch that little piece of paper...

I didn't get to Question 6, which was a bit of a pity, because I actually had the answer (or at least part of an answer) to it. And then Questions 3,4 and 5 were calculation type questions, so no problem there. 2 had me thinking a bit - I had remembered seeing the questions but didn't recall answers for them, so I gave something, which I hope was right. Only Question 1 on the threads was the hard theory of the paper for me, which needless to say I choked a bit on...

Overall, not a bad paper. Walking in I wasn't expecting to pass. Walking out, I think I'm confident that I did. Theory vs calculations: well, if you got through Questions 3, 4 and 5 ok, then thats around 60 % of the paper... you should have passed.

On the exam though - I got a safe state on both occasions. Anyone else get the same?
@hexium - you sure you added the Allocation array to the Work array after each process completes? I almost made the mistake of adding the Need array afterwards instead of the Allocation... Wouldn't have got a safe state by doing that...

I enjoyed this exam, although I still feel the amount of theory in the syllabus compared to amount of theory questions actually examined is unjust.
Proper preparation for this exam was vital.

mfw 15 minutes left and I read the last question. "Write a short essay"

Did I miss a question?? Here's my spirit dropping....
Where was the "write a short essay" question? I only saw up to Question 6, which had the part on the write up of the fragmentation what what for each of those allocation types... Maybe that's what you referring to? I might be misunderstanding something, so my apologies if I am, but I think the panic mode just weighed down the scale a notch or 2 there...

Yep, 6 was the essay.

@Marina: Congrats!

@wishblade: I think Question 6 says something like "...write a short essay on..."

I also did not expect to pass - but now there might be a chance.

My MRV ended up being something like 3 17 8 10 - I forgot to add a 2 somewhere so had to redo it but got safe state in the end.

Hit a complete blank on Q1. Would have liked to give Q6 a try, if it was not for Q4.

For now I don't want to think about threads, bankers algorithms, ext. for a while
2 down, 2 to go.

Yah, I left the room a very frustrated man. I think I dropped the ball carelessly today. Spending 56 minutes on question 2 only. then after realizing this mistake, I started to panic and messed up on simple questions that I should have easily bagged.

@wishblade - Yes, I did add the Allocation for each completed P to Work. I'm wondering if I did not copy down something incorrectly... Well, what's done is done...

LOL, well, all we can do now is press on to the remaining...
@Marius I feel a little relieved that Question 6 read like that. I didn't quite get there (I just finished writing in the Optimal fault frequency for question 5, and then got told that time was up). Would have liked to attempt it, but, oh well...

For the record, my MRV ended up at (3,17,9,10). Somehow I still remember that, despite my best effort to forget. In case someone want something to compare to, although don't take it that this is the correct result, just my result...

It was quite a good paper, had to skip Q1 did Q2 - Q5. Q1 had me stumped on explaining the thread concept but gave what i thought and i only got to Q6 with 10mins left.
@hexium got the same MRV 3 17 9 10 in the exam which is also the same i got for Q3 in the May/June 2011 paper.
Quite confident got this one bagged, next up AI

The paper was exactly like May/Jun 2011 paper. Processes and Threads was good. The essay - I wrote about defrag - made it up as I went along. I think this paper was the bomb. I studied to pass and nothing more. I hope I achieved this. I wanna thank you all that posted the exam prep - it was great insight into OS. Thanks to the Lecturer - fantastic paper and I enjoyed writing this exams more than any paper at Unisa. Questions were not too long, were not something we were not exposed to and it was fair in terms of time. I wrote part in oen and part in pencil as I was not sure of the outcome of the answers for the calculations. I did all the calculations and made up the theory. I would have got enough to pass. Best of luck to everyone in terms of your results.