Notes and Tips for O-11 I.T Appers

[Plan-B]

Hey guys,
As this site has helped me so much in many aspects of VCE, I thought I should give back a little in the subject I knew best. Although the study design changes this year onwards, many of the notes and tips I share should be relevant and useful to future students. To let you guys know, I attained a study score of 50 in I.T during 2010, so I'm hoping my tips feel slightly more meaningful So that I am not a rehash of Ell's great advice, these are just some extra thoughts/ideas I have on the subject.

SACS
1. I know you guys have probably heard this a hundred times, but SACS ARE CRUCIAL! Don't take them for granted. Your SAC grades equate to 50% of your study score! Although the resulting sac grades may fluctuate depending on your exam score, I do believe SACS play a huge role in determining the study score you eventually get.
2. Don't go into a SAC blindly, use the time you have in practice SACS to familiarize yourself with exactly what you have to do. E.g. Don't go into an excel based SAC trying to figure out a particular formula to use, you should have learnt it during the practice one

Preparation
1. For exams, ensure you have reading notes prepared weeks or even months before. Attached below is my 47 page study design notes that I read over and over again in the lead up to exam. I did not refer to the textbook at all for revision, unless I needed to double check or clarify something.
2. Although this sounds cliche, prepare mindmaps as they really do help. It allows you to easily relate important components together
3. I also recommend use of an error log similar to the ones suggested for Methods. It helps minimise the chance of making repeated mistakes.

Exams
1. Although you and most students will be able to finish the exam with 45 minutes or more to spare, I highly advise against doing so. THE EXAM IS NOT A RACE. Instead, take your time to provide a more detailed and comprehensive response. I only had about 10-15 minutes spare at the end. I believe the trade-off in speed to detail was worth it?
2. IT Application is home to some of the dodgiest practice exams ever. Many of them have answers that are inconsistent with the study design. Make sure you are not swayed or confused by these moments. So don’t be discouraged if you happen to lose several marks in certain exams. Your answers may still be right! Always confirm any inconsistencies with the text book, and follow their definitions first!

My results
I bought a statement of marks after receiving my study score. My score was 163/180. Meaning I lost about 8-9 marks in the exam. Surprisingly, it was still enough to achieve my score. However, I was rank 1 with a 98-99% SAC average, and I believe that was the deciding factor for the 50.  Hopefully, that gives a rough indication of what it takes.

I.T Applications is a relatively light subject, but without thorough revision, scaling can screw you over. Good luck 0-11s, I hope I was at least a little bit of help

Notes
* See attached
Feel free to use them as you please (Obviously, it would be more beneficial for you to write your own) However do note that they were written for the 2010 study design, so you may wish to add or remove content to suit your needs. I am unaware of the 2011 changes, so use at your own risk.  My revision notes were basically a combination of Mark Kelly and Potts notes in which I stripped away all irrelevant material.

[ell]

Nice write up Plan-B. For those interested re: new study design changes, found a couple of useful pages on Mark Kelly's site:

• Study design summary + notes for 2011-2014: http://vceit.com/studydesign/ITAsummary2011.htm
  
• FAQs for new study design: http://vceit.com/studydesign/VCAA-FAQ.htm

[nacho]

Be very careful with your SACs, don't underestimate their value.
To get a 40+ for I.T apps, you need an A+ for all graded assessments (or perhaps just two of them, and then a really high A for the third)
Plan-B got 6 marks more than me on the exam and ended up with a 50, whilst i got a 39 - that's the difference.
With that said, you can relax a little bit if your cohort is VERY strong, however, still try to a maintain a rank of 1 or 2.
If you have a poor cohort, it's crucial you are rank 1 (i think i was rank 4 out of 8 dropkicks and 2 students).

The best way to study for IT is to consult with the study guide, I wrote all my notes under the dotpoints in the study guide - it'll save you time, and you're only learning the stuff you need to know!
Excel formulas are a must and you have to be 100% precise in the exam to score any mark at all.

Goodluck!!


Also, a very good website:
www.vceit.com
Please do not judge it by it's aesthetics, this site was more valuable than the textbook, as it takes out all the crap, and includes only relevant things.

For the exam : make sure to do as many practice papers available, and if aiming for a 40+ start them 1-2 months prior to the actual exam. I did about 12~ish, but try to do more than that, it really will help you (also, you have to do them under timed conditions!). VITTA exam papers are extremely dodgy though, just a warning.
And, as many of you've realised, a lot of people are wondering why they didn't get full marks for questions. This is because, they did not include keywords in their answers (or just answered incorrectly).
This is so imperative in the exam, you must include keywords, as most likely, after the 100th or so paper that the examiner marks, he will simply scan through yours looking for the keywords and what not.

[adelaide.emily10]

Thanks so much! 

for school we have to get checkpoints, but i heard leading edge is better, is it worth buying this as well?

what's the best study methods for IT other than doing prac exams over and over again? some people suggest reading notes, other suggest using flash cards, which worked better for you?

[nacho]

Thanks so much!  

for school we have to get checkpoints, but i heard leading edge is better, is it worth buying this as well?

what's the best study methods for IT other than doing prac exams over and over again? some people suggest reading notes, other suggest using flash cards, which worked better for you?

I personally found checkpoints pretty useless and scary..
Flashcards are teh lols, use them if you want though (I've never found them useful for anything).

To study for IT, as above, refer to the study guide, it allowed me to finish the whole course in the 2 week break (but i had more time because i was year 11)
Take the dot points out of the study guide, look up notes from vceit.com and the leading edge  (which is quite helpful, so i recommend you buy it) and even the textbook
I doubt your school will make you go through checkpoints btw, it's kinda crap for IT (IMO)
Also, IT SACs are basically all computer-based, except one.
So you need to know how to use the software, if you ever need help, you can always ask here. (BTW IT SACs = the longest and most draining SACs (4 periods+))

[mattrossi1]

Checkpoints wasn't too bad, though it was annoying after completing the entire book, redoing the VCAA questions in the actual past papers...

I got a 42 raw (ranked no 1 in SACs), which probably doesn't give me as much authority as someone with a 50 raw.  Having said that, I'll try and go over what I did, what was effective, and what I probably should have done if I had my time over again.

SACs

I hated IT SACs.  Granted they were fairly easy work, but they were (unnecessarily) long and tedious, and in many cases diverted a large proportion of my time from my Unit 1/2 subjects (Hopefully this new study design reduces the workload).  Having said that, I was able to gain decent unit marks (feel free to correct me on the use of the word 'decent' to describe my unit marks), which I think helped to make up for my poor exam result to give me a 42 raw study score.

I liked to take the case study and criteria, read it thoroughly and use that to establish what was expected for submission.  I would also constantly clarify with the teacher what, and how much of a certain requirement was appropriate, to ensure I was completely satisfying the requirements.  One mistake I made was not looking up what a structure chart was before creating one, and I lost 1.5 of the 3 marks available for that.  

You will usually find that the actual product you need to produce is only a small component in the marks awarded.  Some of my friends produced some fantastic solutions, but ended up wasting time that could have been better used getting their documentation up to scratch.  My advice would be to make sure you produce a simple, but accurate/functional solution, and cover all bases in detail with everything else.  The SACs are long enough to help commit to memory concepts you will need to know in your exam, so it will help you if you put the work in during your SACs.

Exam Preparation

The best thing you can do is find as many practice exams (even those of dubious quality), complete each paper in exam conditions (which for half of the papers I did not do, mainly due to tiredness/waning focus/occasional interruptions), and harshly mark your answers compared to the answers.  I didn't do the roughly 10-15 I completed in a certain order, and ended up doing some papers a second/third time.  Usually it is recommended in a VCE study that the VCAA past papers are left to the end of your revision, but considering the dubious quality of most commercial papers, it would be wise to use your best judgement on that decision.  I was guilty of marking some exam papers I completed too leniently, so try not to get in to that habit.

Personally, I did not write a comprehensive summary notes booklet like Plan-B.  This was mainly because I felt that I knew most of the content well enough (mainly through my work in the SACs), and I didn't want to be greatly overwhelmed by having to learn the content from a book of that size. I thought it would be best for me to go hard at the papers, working on my responding technique, and trying to plug the holes in my knowledge.  I printed out the study design, read each dot point and crossed out each point that I thought I knew, and then wrote an "IT notes for further revision" document that included material that I wasn't extremely familiar with, and tried to read/memorise that outside of practice exams.

On reflection, I would advise anyone to take up Plan-B's advice.  The summary notes would help in getting used to the exact interpretations/wording expected by the examiners (IT Apps is not maths, so it is important to try and give the answers that the examiners want as much as you can, above and beyond any experience you have in IT).  The error log is a fantastic idea to keep track of your mistakes to prevent them from reoccurring, and it is something I will consider doing for my subjects next year.

Exam

From memory, my plan was to finish 30-45 mins early, so I could go over mistakes I thought I may have made and correct them (Put simply, I didn't really trust myself due to the occasional occurrence where my interpretation of a solution was different to the official solution).

During reading time, I ended up spending half of it answering the multiple choice (in between a slight loss of concentration for about 15-30 seconds which threw me off course a bit), and the rest on the short answer.  I filled out the multiple choice section in about 5-10 minutes, and finished the paper with 30 mins to go to spare, so I could check my answers.  That was a bad mistake...

I should not have answered the multiple choice in my head during reading time.  This then took time away that I could have used to better read through each question and make sure my interpretation of the answer was better.  A better plan of attack would have been to briefly skim over the multiple choice over the first couple of minutes, spend the rest of reading time going over each question and thinking carefully about what the question wanted, complete the mult. choice in about 15 minutes and finished the paper with 10-15 minutes to spare as Plan-B suggested.

To sum up, I performed poorly in my exam (see my sig for scores) due to my ineffective exam approach, and it had a large enough impact on the sort of score I received.

I hope this helps anyone taking IT Apps in 2011, and I wish everyone the best of luck.  Just remember that IT nous is not enough to be successful in this subject.  If you are prepared and have worked hard, you will do well without a doubt.

[Lasercookie]

I've stickied this thread now.

I found the advice in this thread pretty valuable while doing ITA in 2011 (as well as this thread: General Advice for IT Applications, though be wary of some of the mnemonics and stuff referred to there relate to the old course). I kept reading these posts for motivation throughout the year.

No doubt that people doing ITA for the few years to come will also find it useful.

Seeing that study scores don't come out for a few weeks yet, I currently don't have a score to deduce how well I did in that respect, but it doesn't matter - I'm satisfied with what I did and learnt this year. Advice wise, I think everyone else has said everything that needs to be said, but I can say that it would be useful throughout the year to find ways to enjoy the subject. Particularly for the majority of the year when you're not really thinking about exams, it does get a bit drab if you're not focusing on the parts you find interesting. Try not to limit yourself to just doing what is required to get the marks. Do keep in mind that databases and spreadsheets do get a bit (just a bit ) boring if you're approaching them in a boring fashion.

It's definitely more interesting to try and find the best/most creative way to design a database or to try and create a website that actually looks good and would be much closer to something you'd be likely to put out onto the internet (ensuring your code is clean and valid, avoid the WYSIWYG aspects of the web authoring software you have to use etc.). Maybe you wouldn't go and implement that stuff into your SACs if you're tight for time, but definitely play around with the software and tasks the weeks before each SAC.