The Exam

So an all round easy exam. I find that the questions in the assignments do not prepare someone for the exam(I am talking about the SQL scripting here).
For example, the assignments would lead someone to believe that they are required to know the absolute basics, but the past exams (and this last exam) have shown that
you need to know a great deal more (triggers, procedures accepting values for example).

Anyway, back to the actual exam. I finished in half the given time, even after writing a third of a page answer to the question which asked us to consider a query which was not provided.
This notion was quite something, considering the question was worth 8 marks. How does this happen? There are three examiners, and not one of them can pick up this blatant mistake in the paper while moderating it? (there were also massive mistakes in the past papers, as well as the memorandom which was given to us in the exam tut letter)

I also get irritated with vague questions such as asking to supply the tuples unique to table customer_2. Firstly, there was nothing to suggest the table should be linked with another table. Secondly, there is barely enough data in the table to compare with another. Lastly, the only table which they MIGHT mean to compare with, is inconsistent because it has an extra column. So how must this question be answered?
The other table also had differing customer codes, so even if there was a common name (Juan Ortega or something), the tuple is still unique on account of having a different customer code and no customer_balance.

3 marks for the simplest query one could ever write. Unless I have missed something?

im just glad they didnt ask me to draw an ERD coz i get really confused sometimes when it gets too much.... I'd say the paper was fair its just that i wasn't well prepared. kwaaaaak LOL @ the 1/3 of a page trying to answer the question with the missing query!

A third of a page for an incomplete question
Mind you, for formal logic last year, I had an incomplete question. I managed to fill in the rest of the question because I knew what they were going to ask about and I answered the question (an entire page). However, this paper had me stumped. There was no way I could guess what they were going to ask in that incomplete question today

What did you write Scag?

I thought the paper was fair as well. I also noticed a few mistakes in the past papers. I wonder if the lecturers even get a chance to see the papers after they are printed?

Well, todays exam . . . I wish every exam that I have to write can be esay as this one! The paper was fair. Here and there a fague question, especially SQL. I had to double check my coding just to make sure I didn't make any foolish mistake, or missing something too obvious. Busy with final prep for cos408. Likely I had an easy one to write just before tacking a huge one the day after. It gives you some courage and hope. . I'm glad that I'm not the only one missing an incomplete question. When I spotted the error in the exam, I looked like an idiot for a moment trying to find the missing part. Well, I thinking the exams are getting to me, again

I emailed the lecturer and she said that she did not see the paper after it went to the printers, but that no one will be disadvantaged for any errors.

The question was: "Consider the following query:"
My answer went something like this:
I have spent some time trying to consider the query for this 8 mark question, but it seems I have fallen short of an answer and must attempt an alternate school of thought. I have asked the invigilator for their opinion on the question, but they were speechless, and were thus not much help at all. I will infer that my page is not unique(being the only person writing this exam at my venue, I cannot ask for a comparison of papers). And so I find myself turning to Douglas Adams for an answer. He inferred that the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything had been found by a supercomputer.

The answer is 42.

Dude! That is wicked cool
I see some of us has a lot of time (or nerve, which either way ) to write a note for the lecturer in the exam in a universal language to infer that an error could have logically occured based on the derivation from the premises (of nothingless).

A nothing question deserves a note to the markers that no question was provided and not a 1/3 page length answer.
All you had to do was make a note in your answer script that no question was supplied and you will get an automatic 8 marks

And the paper was far to easy. I encountered more difficult database questions in my 1st year undergrad.

Thank you for that mm07. Why so serious?