UNIVERSITY OF MALTA
THE MATRICULATION CERTIFICATE EXAMINATION
ADVANCED LEVEL
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
May 2008
EXAMINERS’ REPORT
MATRICULATION AND SECONDARY EDUCATION
CERTIFICATE EXAMINATIONS BOARD
AM EXAMINERS’ REPORT MAY 2008
AM Information Technology
May 2008 Session
Examiners’ Report
Part 1: Statistical Information
GRADE
Number
% of Total
A
B
7
7.45
C
21
22.34
D
26
27.66
E
21
22.34
F
11
11.70
Abs
4
4.26
4
4.26
Total
94
100
The average mark for the IT Advanced 2008 examination is 56 out of 100. This is rather
disappointing. The student’s performance in Paper II B seems to be slightly better than
that of Paper I circa 3 %.
Comments regarding Paper 1
Section A
Question 1
a) Most students could not explain and define project management. Students could
not understand why a good project team is needed and what successful IT
implementation is all about.
b) About Data Protection and Recovery. Students did not understand the term
negligence. Most students did not comprehend the difference between validation
and verification. Students could not explain why disaster planning is necessary!
c) The Data Protection act seems to be another poorly covered topic. Students did
not know how to answer this question and tried to guess correct answers.
Question 2
Business Intelligence Software and Expert Systems. It seems that the students did not
have any knowledge about these topics with only a handful of students answering
correctly. Other students just guessed answers.
Question 3
Most students were familiar with the basic Waterfall model. When asked which model to
use for rapidly changing environments students could not answer at all!
Question 4
This topic was quite easy. Still only a handful of students could define EDI and correctly
explain validation techniques for data. Some answers given were rather poor and not up
to what is expected at A level.
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AM EXAMINERS’ REPORT MAY 2008
Section B
Question 1
Most students could not answer correctly most of this question which is mainly based on
recall and explaining some models.
Question 2, 3 & 4
These questions required more application skills and good writing skills. Students did not
give really good answers as is evident from the marks obtained.
Comments regarding Paper 2
Section A
Most Students seem to have been able to answer most of the questions about software
and applications correctly and score good marks.
Section B
This section about programming & system development is proving to be a difficult
section for students. Questions 2, 3 & 4 were preferred to Question 5 which was based on
Java programming. Question 5 was selected by a handful of students who did not score
low marks! Again, even Questions 1, 2, 3 and 4 still leave much to be desired!
Set Exercises
Observing the exercises carried out at different institutions there are several issues that
need to be addressed.
I)
Students are being given too much help
II)
The exercises lack structure
III)
Some of the solutions that have been used are rather poor and definitely not
what is expected at Advanced level. Students need to use better presentation
skills and present more solid work that is easy to follow logically and
comprehend. This lack of skills is also being reflected in the examination
where the writing skill is rather poor.
Chairperson
Board of Examiners
July 2008
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