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5. 2014 HSC Notes from the Marking Centre — Software Design and Development

2014 Notes from the Marking Centre – Software Design and Development

Introduction

This document has been produced for the teachers and candidates of the Stage 6 Software Design and Development course. It contains comments on candidate responses to the 2014 Higher School Certificate examination, highlighting their strengths in particular parts of the examination and indicating where candidates need to improve.
This document should be read along with:

• the Software Design and Development Stage 6 Syllabus
• the 2014 Higher School Certificate Software Design and Development examination
• the marking guidelines
• Advice for HSC students about examinations
• other support documents developed by the Board of Studies, Teaching and Educational Standards NSW to assist in the teaching and learning of Software Design and Development in Stage 6.

Section II

Candidates showed strength in these areas:

• understanding that legal action can occur for piracy and/or breaches of intellectual property (Q.21)
• knowing the main features of storyboards and IPO diagrams (Q.22)
• understanding that Gantt charts and logbooks are project management tools (Q.23)
• selecting screen elements to improve the efficiency of data collection (Q.25)
• identifying the responsibilities of the developer (Q.26a)
• identifying potential communication issues (Q.26b)
• identifying possible reasons for the occurrence of the errors (Q.27a)
• outlining a range of appropriate actions for the business or the developer (Q.27b)
• identifying logic errors in the algorithm (Q.28)
• understanding module testing (Q.29)
• knowing the basic structures of an algorithm (Q.30 & Q.33)
• understanding that arrays of records are used to store data or to allow ease of searching data (Q.31a)
• identifying the main process required to solve the problem (Q.31c)
• being able to generalise the railroad diagram syntax given in the examples (Q.32)
• recognising that a loop is not necessary or the search should be stopped once the required record is found (Q.34a).

Candidates need to improve in these areas:

• being aware of the difference between piracy (copying of software) and intellectual property breaches (copying of source code) (Q.21)
• understanding the differences in the use of storyboards and IPO diagrams during the software development process (Q.22)
• being aware of the distinction between programming tools and project management tools (Q.23)
• not confusing between sequential file access and the sequential approach of programming (Q.24)
• understanding the application of sequential and event-driven programming (Q.24)
• annotating screen designs to highlight areas of improved efficiency (Q.25)
• understanding the responsibilities of the developer with regard to both data and the website (Q.26a)
• relating their response to the scenario (Q.26b)
• providing clear action(s) for each party (Q.27b)
• modifying algorithms (Q.28 and Q.34b)
• understanding the relationship between program testing and module testing (Q.29)
• writing an algorithm that correctly calls a subroutine with loop that exits (Q.30)
• understanding how arrays of records can be applied in the scenario(Q.31a)
• addressing the requirement of minimising groups being split (Q.31b)
• including all the processes required and drawing a data flow diagram, rather than a flowchart or a structure chart (Q.31c)
• understanding how to represent repetition and more complex syntax in a railroad diagram (Q.32)
• understanding the data structures required in the problem and providing correct loop conditions (Q.33)
• addressing all parts of the question (Q.33)
• recognising that the first IF statement is designed to prevent run-time errors by preventing reading past the end of the array (Q.34b).

Section III

Candidates showed strength in these areas:

• identifying features of the logic paradigm (Q.35ai)
• identifying features of the object-oriented paradigm (Q.35aii)
• recognising that a method is written in code (Q.35b)  
• recognising that the open_account method can be used to solve the problem (Q.35ci)
• identifying the accounts that would be opened (Q.35cii)
• extending the code to include the new facts (Q.35di)
• naming a type of chaining (Q.35dii)
• knowing how to convert to 2’s complement representation (Q.36a)
• identifying logic gates (Q.36b)
• recognising the difference between floating point and integer values (Q.36e).

Candidates need to improve in these areas:

• understanding strengths that are specific to the logic paradigm (Q.35ai)
• understanding strengths that are specific to the object-oriented paradigm (Q.35aii)
• recognising that a method is the only way to change a private attribute (Q.35b)
• recognising that simply moving the methods from public to private would not solve the problem (Q.35ci)
• interpreting code and explaining actions for instructions given (Q.35cii)
• extending the code to include the new rule (Q.35di)
• understanding how chaining works (Q.35dii)
• understanding how 2’s complement is used in binary subtraction (Q.36a)
• understanding Boolean notation not just logic gates (Q.36b)
• representing the logic of a problem in a truth table (Q.36c)
• understanding how data can be shifted using combinations of flip flops (Q.36d)
• understanding the purpose of the bits used to represent floating point numbers and integers (Q.36e)
• understanding the use of control characters in a data stream (Q.36fi)
• understanding the differences between the data streams in the two directions, in particular, the differences in the data stored in the header, data block and trailer (Q.36fii).