Personalised Feedback Sheet for IGCSE Section 1 Types and Components of Computers
Name: Corey Ericksen
Target grade: Score on this assessment: 23/58 Grade for this assessment: F
General feedback/class needs: On the plus side, most of you understood what hardware and software is and could identify examples of each. Also, most of you managed to do well with a bit of common sense on the true/false questions. However, overall performance in this test by the whole class was poor. Basic knowledge was lacking and it was painfully evident that most students had not prepared or revised properly for this test. Worst of all, students were not even reading questions carefully and provided poor answers which had nothing to do with the question. Common issues: USB is NOT a storage device. In fact the answer USB is useless in any question, it means Universal Serial Bus, and there are countless devices that use it. You must specify WHAT USB device, A USB Memory stick for example, otherwise your answer is meaningless. RAM and ROM clearly many students had not learned the definitions, were confused as to the meaning of the word Volatile and could not provide adequate descriptions as to what each does and is for. Operating Systems Students could not explain what it does, worse, virtually no one understood the advantages and disadvantages of GUIs and CLIs, despite this being clearly written in your notes. Reading the question countless marks were lost due to students not reading a question carefully and giving a totally irrelevant answer. Your personal targets (to be filled in during the lesson): 1. To revise GUI and its purposes. 2. To learn the definition of ram and rom. 3. To be able to accurately identify hardware and software. Review One written question I got right was, Who would use a mainframe computer? I got this one right because I remembered about what it said on the IGCSE website and that they were big and powerful and my answer was university. One written question I got right but not full marks was, Describe the difference between RAM and ROM. I put ram is volatile and rom is non-volatile for two marks but I needed to add more detail like why it is volatile or not. One question I got wrong was Give one disadvantage of a GUI. I got this question wrong because I didnt remember what GUI was and what it does so I had a guess.
Challenge/Extension You will have been allocated an exam question to further your knowledge or help you to overcome a misconception. Copy out the question here in full and answer it. Describe four features of rom. The memory can be changed, it remains memory when the computer is turned off, it stores the instructions when the computer starts up again, you wont loose any data. Explain why computers have both backing storage and ram. Ram is fast temporary and backing storage