Exam feedback

How did you find it?

It wasnt what I expected. I was sure we would get diagrams to draw and calculations to work out. I was bitterly disappointed that it wasnt so.

I mostly only went over the past exams, so everything else I had to rely on long term memory...

I found the paper totally horrible! I knew every calculation imagineable, and both essays...but alas nothing was asked. I don't even know where the big question on IT governance came from...and not to mention what's the point of saying we are allowed calculators when clearly we were never going to be using it...if Prof said that in her tut letter i would have saved myself alot of time not learning calculations and diagrams...

Very dissapointed to say the least...

Well... I know that the exam was a fail for me. What was the expected answer for IT governance?
I didn't know the theories/ models by Taylor and Maslow, so missed out on that.

I couldn't remember the specifics of the team as well... I had concentrated on the "difficult" areas for this exam, from the essays to doing the calculations and explaining things on EV etc.

There was such an emphasis on calculations... the past exams all had calculations, the exam guidelines emphasised calculations and being able to calculate NPV and even today's exam instructions stated that a calculator is permissable and all calculations should be shown.

Same here! It was horrible. It took me about five minutes to pull myself together and to start tacklling the exam. Likely I did all the past exam papers and most of the assignment work. It really gave me something to work on. Question 4 was not cool. 20 marks is so much to ask about something that was never handled in the assignment or in previous exams. The last question was OK because it consisted of three parts basically, so you had an oppertunity to get some important marks. I am praying for 40%, because I know my year mark will pull me through.

What really pissed me off is that we should have studied all the diagrams, and calculations (except for chap 5 calculations), and it was also stipulated clearly that you must use a calculator, and we must ensure that we can do exponential calculations. I think most of us were exponentially supprised about the layout of the exam! I really studied all the calculations and diagrams hard, which led me to skip some theory here and there. That is going to cost me darely, if not most of us.

The exam paper wasn't balanced at all. I expected at least some calculations (about 20%), some diagrams (also about 20%), and the rest of the paper can then be assignment theory and some other catch out theory questions.
So much work has been put in, for nothing. I feel that we were all been caught out badly.

I see prof Eloff is looking for some feedback, and I will replay politely and state my concerns clearly.

What came to mind about that IT governance question for me, was the 3 layers of management (programme, portfolio and project), where one is for strategy, the other is for middle managers, and project management is for lower managers. I am certain that is what it was about, but I didnt nearly write enough for 20 marks.

I learnt all the calculations and diagrams too, for no reason. I also was sure that we would have a choice between two essays, in particular from the two she specifically mentioned. So I went over LaMarsh more so than the other. LUCKY.

The LaMarsh question was also directed more toward success and failure, but the article was more to do with complexity in software projects, and how it affected success and failure. Why was the essay not about complexity as a cause for failure? On that note, what were the other two causes for failure(since the article was entitled "complexity as a cause for failure"? I just mentioned the three things to reduce complexity as the causes for failure...

I think I answered atleast 60 marks well. So conservatively, maybe 45. I just kept remembering that this subject has a 40-60% year mark/exam mark contribution, so I started the exam with 28%.

I think provided you have a decent year mark, you should be ok.

the 'notes on exams' was very misleading....

I was expecting this kind of reaction from the forum, I agree the exam notes and previous exam papers were completely different, I went into the exam with 30 %, but I think if you fail the exam, UNISA fails you for the year anyway, not sure.
It made my day miserable yeday, and I still got another exam left on monday!!
For Question 4, I took a wild shot and mentioned the ISO 12207 and other frameworks frameworks. Hopefully I got a few marks for creativity, lol!

AliWasp Wrote:
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> but I think if you fail the exam,
> UNISA fails you for the year anyway, not sure.

I dont know hey. I have often seen something to the effect of : final mark=year mark + exam mark, final mark of 50 = pass. No other criteria such as a sub-minimum...
I dont understand the point of a year mark if you need 50 for the exam anyway. 99.9% of the time, the year mark is only 10% .

Hi Scaq

I did read somewhere that there is a sub-minimum for the exam, which is 40%. One of my exam tutorials explained it that even if you had a fantastic year mark, you still must get above 40% to pass overall.

Also the MyUnisa letter about sups for Hons make mention of it to...

I'm just hoping that by some miracle marks are adjusted for this course...i am also writing INF460 on Monday...just need to dust myself off and concentrate for my last paper..