HSC Software Design and Development Exam Thoughts (2 Viewers)

[Drdusk]

Good luck for tomorrows exam guys!

If anyone on here does SDD, feel free to share your thoughts. How did you find it? Were the longer algorithms alright or were they hard?
I'm quite excited to see the paper myself =)

I hope the option topic is easy like it was for us last year

 

[iwanttogotouni]

good luck boyos

 

[iwanttogotouni]

option topic 2 cleeeeeeaaaan

 

[Balajanovski]

It was a pretty easy test.
Out of curiousity, what did everyone else put for the system flowchart symbol for the online cloud storage?

 

[Drdusk]

It was a pretty easy test.
Out of curiousity, what did everyone else put for the system flowchart symbol for the online cloud storage?

They actually asked a system flowchart? That's like the first time in more than 10 years.

How did it compare to 2018?

 

[BreaksSuli]

do you think the scanners will pick up my pencil algorithms and diagrams? it was 2B, but I think the tone was too light.

I'm paranoid if the markers can see my answers...

 

[Balajanovski]

They actually asked a system flowchart? That's like the first time in more than 10 years.

How did it compare to 2018?

Overall compared to 2018 it was slightly harder, but not by much.

 

[programen]

One of the algorithms we had to find errors in and fix kinda sucked since there was a lot of errors for 2 marks. It's probably the hardest SDD paper by a small margin.

Multis were straight forward except for one question and the interrelationship questions were easy.

 

[Drdusk]

do you think the scanners will pick up my pencil algorithms and diagrams? it was 2B, but I think the tone was too light.

I'm paranoid if the markers can see my answers...

I did all my answers in Pencil as well last year, and their scanner obviously picked it up because I got a good mark.

 

[Drdusk]

Overall compared to 2018 it was slightly harder, but not by much.

One of the algorithms we had to find errors in and fix kinda sucked since there was a lot of errors for 2 marks. It's probably the hardest SDD paper by a small margin.

Multis were straight forward except for one question and the interrelationship questions were easy.

That's interesting. I can't wait to see the paper in a day or two. Let's see if it's harder, usually people say that every year but it's largely due to doing it on the spot =).

Although the fact that they actually put a question on System flowcharts has got me thinking in that it might be harder :\

 

[programen]

It was a pretty easy test.
Out of curiousity, what did everyone else put for the system flowchart symbol for the online cloud storage?

Course specifications don't mention a sideways cylinder. it's just a regular cylinder

 

[BreaksSuli]

I did all my answers in Pencil as well last year, and their scanner obviously picked it up because I got a good mark.

how hard and how dark were your pencil markings? were they on the side of dark gray or light gray?

 

[Balajanovski]

Course specifications don't mention a sideways cylinder. it's just a regular cylinderView attachment 27372

How would you distinguish between the cloud storage and hard drive storage then? Would cloud simply be another disk drive?

 

[Balajanovski]

Course specifications don't mention a sideways cylinder. it's just a regular cylinderView attachment 27372

By the way are you from Girraween? As I didn't mention anything about sideways cylinders in my post so how could you have know that is what I put?

 

[programen]

How would you distinguish between the cloud storage and hard drive storage then? Would cloud simply be another disk drive?

Yes, a disk drive connected to a telecommunications link.

By the way are you from Girraween? As I didn't mention anything about sideways cylinders in my post so how could you have know that is what I put?

Oh, what an odd coincidence. I heard two people talk about it after my exam.

 

[Drdusk]

how hard and how dark were your pencil markings? were they on the side of dark gray or light gray?

They were more so in the middle leaning towards light. You really don't have to worry. It's highly unlikely they won't be able to read it.

And if they can't read the scan I'm pretty sure they order the hard copy of your paper

 

[thatace]

Not gonna lie, I found the section II of this exam to be one of the hardest. Section 3 was really easy.

 

[sourpatchkid]

Section II felt longer than I expected and was kinda draining. Luckily that option topic was pretty easy

 

[dontbeasavage]

Not bad, some gaps in terms of score array and the drone and computer thing.

 

[Drdusk]

Overall compared to 2018 it was slightly harder, but not by much.

Not gonna lie, I found the section II of this exam to be one of the hardest. Section 3 was really easy.

Okay to all those you said it was harder than 2018 I just had a look at it.
MC:
1-15 free marks, nothing too special.
16: Did they really ask this? This exact question has been asked in a previous Hsc paper, I can't believe they just copied it.
17: Good question
18-20 felt a bit too easy for the 'final' MC questions
Overall MC was the same with 2018 in terms of difficulty. Nothing special

Section 2:
21-23(i) free marks
23(ii) I can't believe they actually asked about a System flowchart. I guess they wanted to throw people off who thought it's alright if you don't learn it.
That's the first time in over a decade..

The rest up to 27(c) is all free marks really. No algorithms so far! Which is interesting because 2018 started getting them MUCH earlier.
26(c) is really a useless question, I mean have them draw a structure chart but explain the symbols?

28) Another string algorithm like 2018 which is always fun. Pretty easy algorithm like 2018. They give you all the functions so it should literally be just a few lines.

29) Free marks. Too easy for the later part of the paper.

30) Now this is an interesting algorithm. Switching between two different types of arrays may have been a bit difficult for some. However really all your required was an O(n^2) algorithm, i.e. For/while loops nested inside one big for loop that loops through the first array. Overall probably a bit harder than the 2018 Q30 algorithm.

Section 2: Overall was an easier section than 2018. It had MUCH less algorithms and a lot of questions were giving away free marks. There weren't really questions designed to trick you as opposed to Q27 of 2018 which tricked a lot of people. Instead of drawing a Structure chart you were made to explain the symbols? Like come on.
Definitely Sec 2 felt longer but it was also easier than 2018.

Overall easier paper than 2018. On par with 2017.