Get the questions from the VCAA site (PDF)

To save time, I'll just provide suggested answers. Read this along with your own copy of the sample questions. Jump to part B.

SECTION A

1. <C>

Ascending means in rising order (A to Z, 1 to 9) . It takes a bit of mental juggling and jotting numbers down to sort out, but it's an interesting question.

2. <D>

It's easy enough to tick books 1,2,5,6,7 because of the author's surname, and only double-tick those also matching the second condition based on year. Note that ">2000" means GREATER THAN 2000... not "less than" and not "greater than or equal to", so book 6 is ruled out along with 1 and 7! Only books with 2 ticks qualify for selection - 2 and 5.

3. <B>

A flat file database has only 1 table and no relationships with other tables. It's not option A because you need at least one table in a database!

4. <D>

Some old Filemaker users might be arguing, "but I often have multiple files in my Filemaker projects" but they are acting as tables. In modern Filemaker databases, you can have multiple tables within the same file, as Access does it.

Relationships are not hard - just ask Tom Cruise. I'll do a page on them sometime soon. Hang on. Already have. Here's one I prepared earlier.

5. <C> Pretty easy.

Can't be A or B because you don't store pix in Text or memo fields. Can't be D because a Boolean field stores only True/False answers.

Since field types "memo", "object" are distinctly MS Access flavoured I hope the examiners are fair to kids using Filemaker and SQL and other non-MS products!

6. <C> (probably, but it's a BAD QUESTION!)

Won't be A or B because not all files are in emails. Option C is badly worded - you won't DRAG over filenames, you click them. The 'Last Modified' date would appear, but only if the optional status bar were turned on (which, by default, it is not). My original answer <D> is correct in that right-clicking the checking properties is the more likely way to check file info, but looking at the creation date would not tell you the latest version of a file.

The most important fault with this question is similar to Q5 - it's totally biased towards certain types of users: in this case Windows users. Mac/Linux users would be totally baffled by this question.

7. <C>

Pedants might argue about this one. It's definitely not A because a LAN cannot span 3 Australian states. An intranet is a closed version of the internet only available to insiders... and if a WAN spans 3 states, who's to say it can't be a very BIG intranet? It's a bit iffy. Anyway, I assume the examiners are expecting <C>.

8. <B>

This was a fun one. The most efficient option takes the least time, money and labour. A simple single upload is far easier and quicker than any of the alternatives.

9. <D>

This is one you either know or you don't. If you don't, do something about it before U4O1. Accept my VLOOKUP - NESTED IF challenge.

10. <D>

The only sensible contenders were row-related options A or D, and A made no sense.

Question 1.

Every year I have to throw tizzy fits about the ambiguity of exam questions.  I thought by now that the VCAA would have hired an exam writer who could write unambiguous English.  See Section B, Q1:

"James Herbert has a small business selling equipment for trout fishing which he started two years ago."

Anyone who has learnt about subjects and verbs knows this clearly means James started trout fishing two years ago, and he has a small business selling equipment for it.

"Which" refers to the last object mentioned, which was "trout fishing", not the lexically remote "small business."

It should have connected the pronoun properly with its referent noun:

"Two years ago James Herbert started a small business which sells equipment for trout fishing."

Anyway, to answer the question...

1a. Various possibilities exist:

1b. The problem the VCAA has is that they have to accept any answer pertaining to any RDMS! I hope they've boned up on all of them so they can recognise valid answers at the end of the year!

i. In Filemaker, enter FIND mode and in the Cost field enter <50. Then perform the find.
In Access, create a query and in the Cost column enter <50

ii.In Filemaker, enter FIND mode and in the Item Description field enter Fishing Rods. In the Manufacturer enter Trufly. Then perform the find.
In Access, create a query and in the Item Description column enter Fishing Rods. In the Manufacturer column enter Trufly.

1c. The names give no indication of what the Queries do. He'd have to open and study each one to find out what it does.

Another Access-centric question! Filemaker users do not talk of Queries!

Question 2

Advantages of relational databases over flat file databases:

1. They reduce data duplication by having data entered only in one place.

2. They make editing easier since data only has to be changed in one place.

3. They allow active data 'lookups' that respond instantly to updated information in other places.

4. They allow sophisticated data-matching facilities.

5. They can be scaled up into massive multi-user distributed data stores.

6. Data storage is far more efficient that a simple sparsely-populated table that often must set aside storage for many fields, but actually only uses a few of them. e.g. to store a student's subject choices in a flat-file database you might need to allocate 10 storage slots for up to 10 subjects taken by year 7 students. However most students in the college take far fewer subjects, leaving most of the slots empty. A relational database only needs to store the data that is actually required - students could have any number of subjects with no wasted storage space or need to "hard-wire" a maximum value in.

Question 3

Question 4

Effective user inferfaces

Alignment - all field boxes would be neatly aligned (e.g. left edges of the address and name fields)

Element size - data controls should be of a size suitable for the data they will typically store. e.g. The title field is far too wide for a simple "Mr" or "Dr" and the address field is far too narrow.

Grouping - related items should be visually proximal e.g. surname and name fields should be side by side; address, suburb and postcode should be next to each other.

Ordering - the 'address, postcode, suburb' layout should be changed to 'address, suburb, postcode' to comply with conventional address formatting

Labelling - a field label should be unambiguous, e.g. Member name should be changed to Member First Name to distinguish it from the surname field.

Limited lists - it would be advisable to use a limited list so common titles (e.g. Mr, Mrs) can be easily entered with less risk of non-standard values or typing errors.

Help - users should be given clues as to how you expect them to enter data e.g. the caption for phone number could read "Phone (areacode) 1234 7899"

Spacing - avoid crowding fields together, where possible.

Question 5

a. The reason for the procedures should be explained to Jean so she understands the importance of conforming to them. She could be trained so she knows how to use the procedures and technical setup. In extreme cases, she could be blocked from sending any attachments to the team.

b. Encryption makes data unreadable to people who do not have the required 'unlocking' code. Even if the data is intercepted or stolen, it is useless to unauthorised people.

c. The examiners would be looking for a storyboard and/or hierarchy chart, but I don't plan to show one here.

d. Website testing.

All links should be clicked to ensure they lead to the correct destination.

Multimedia elements should be activated to make sure they appear properly, and in a reasonable time using different speed internet connections.

The site should be tested in each of the major browsers to see if they render pages properly.

Attempts should be made to access the VPN without the correct password to see that security is working and that team communications are secret.

Sample encrypted messages should be subjected to unauthorised attempts to decrypt them.

The website should be bombarded with requests to test its ability to withstand huge global interest.

Protection of team pages should tested by attempting to access them without authority, or by attempting to leech content from them with a site-ripping tool.

e.

f. Dialup will be very slow, and subject to 'drop outs' which require re-dialling and which can trash downloads. Li would not be able to download very large urgent files in a timely fashion. He may well not be able to participate in team activities that require large bandwidth, such as video conferencing or VOIP phone calls.

Question 6

Design elements on a web interface

According to the VCAA glossary, design elements are "Factors that contribute to the appearance and functionality of an information product. In this study these elements are proportion (visual hierarchy), orientation (direction/aspect), clarity and consistency, colour and contrast, usability and accessibility, appropriateness, relevance."

Proportion - large headings, smaller subheadings, smaller body text.

Orientation - horizontal page heading. Vertical navbar on right hand side. Columnar or tabular body topics.

Clarity and consistency - same (apparently - hard to see in a black and white graphic!) background colour for all headings. Highlighted colour on selected item in the top menu/navbar.

Colour and contrast - Good contrast between text colours and background colours.

Usability - Home and Contact links provided. 'Created' and 'Last modified' dates appear. Link to site map for people who are lost. Search box to facilitate the finding of relevant information. Links to related information are easy to find and use.

Appropriateness - no sex or violence included. A formal tone is maintained.

Relevant - Content is relevant to the organisation. Discussion and links are relevant to the current topic.

Question 7

'Home > About us > Curriculum' gives information to the user about where they currently are in a hierarchy of related topics. They realise that, for example, the current curriculum discussion is part of a larger discussion of what the college is about. It also provides a path backwards to the visitor can step back up to a 'parent topic' and finally reach the site's homepage whence they can go in a different direction.

Such 'context-sensitive' location markers reassure a visitor about their position in a large and potentially-convoluted data store.

Question 8

a. On screen user documentation factors

Bandwidth - if the documentation needs to be downloaded, its size must be tailored to users' bandwidth.

Storage requirements - if it is to be stored on CD, for example, the documentation's files must not exceed the storage capacity of the CD.

Software requirements - what players, viewers, browsers etc does the reader need on their computer to be able to view text and multimedia components of the documentation?

Colours - must have good contrast between foreground and background colours

Navigation - users need to be able to quickly and easily find the content they need. They should not get lost or "stuck" with no way of getting back to the home page.

Language - must be clear and easily understandable by its target audience.

etc.

b. Onscreen vs printed documentation differences

• Speed of editing and updating
• Cost of production (especially printing and transporting of printed docs)
• Cost of colour
• The use of multimedia (particularly animation and sound)
• The ability to include non-text material such as software
• Search ability
• The use of hyerlinks to interconnect related material
• The need for computer equipment and/or communications pathways to access the information
• The sensory and tactile pleasure of handling aromatic leather bindings and quality paper.
• The ability to read the material in bright sunlight.
• The ability to scribble notes in margins.
• etc

Question 9

Accidental action - student deleting a document

Procedure - a 'trickle backup' to a remote location would save documents as soon as they are created and saved and could be recovered even if they were created and deleted on the same day.

Deliberate action - a student deleting another student's files

Procedure - use network passwords to ensure only the owner of a file can access it. Log all network actions to give information about when crimes were committed. Video surveillance of computer rooms to show who was using a computer at the time of the crime.

Technical failure - hard disk failure on the server

Procedure - use RAID arrays so a disk failure can easily be remedied by ejecting the faulty disk, inserting a replacement and letting the RAID controller resurrect the content of the damage disk from the surviving disks.

Question 10

This is a bit odd.

For one thing, it's not good form to build constants like 3900 into formulas. Then, the IF's true expression (3900*VLOOKUP(3900,$I$6:$J$8,2) is an awkward way to get the answer.

This is not to say that the calculation is wrong: it is just working out one charge for a particular rate of usage. But to my way of thinking it's unnecessarily complex for what it does.

More elegant would be something like  =IF( G2 > 3900 , 3900 * J6, G2 * J6 ) because the VLOOKUPs are achieving little. So the formula resolves to:

 =IF( totalmj > 3900 , 3900 * 0.01 , totalmj * 0.009 )

which further reduces to

 =IF( totalmj > 3900 , 39 , totalmj * 0.009 )

It is a pretty convoluted and atypical use of VLOOKUP for an exam question, I reckon. Thanks to Sam D for pointing out a glitch in my workings-out.

10b - Cells to be electronically validated.

One could say...

B2 should be >= C2.

Values in A2 to G2 should exist.

Anything else?

10d - Move the lookup table to a different sheet to get it out of the way.

Make the important numbers e.g. current charges larger and easier to see.

Format all currency in column D to 2 decimal places and add $ signs.