THE INSTITUTE OF CHARTERED ACCOUNTANTS OF PAKISTAN
EXAMINERS’ COMMENTS
SUBJECT
Information Technology
SESSION
Intermediate Examination - Spring 2012
General:
This time also, the overall performance was quite satisfactory. Most of the students were
well prepared so far as the routine topics are concerned. A little bit of extra efforts to
cover the less frequently tested areas could have improved the result further.
Question-wise comments are as follows:
Q.1
In first part of the question, most students correctly described advantages of mesh
topology such as lack of single point of failure and high security and also the
disadvantages such as difficulty in adding more devices and high cost.
In the second part students were not very sure. Only about one-third correctly
suggested the star topology. Many students did not give any reason to justify their
choice.
Q.2
It seemed as if the majority of students had not studied this area. The students
mostly produced vague answers based on the general meaning of the two terms.
Since most students did not possess the desired level of knowledge, very few were
able to give appropriate examples of the two types of systems, in response to part
(b) of the question.
Q.3
The question required listing of issues which limit the use of video conferencing.
The answer was easy to guess and most students secured high marks.
Q.4
Most students were able to identify three types of decision tables i.e. Limited
Entry, Extended Entry and Mixed Entry. However, most of them could only
explain the Limited Entry and were confused as regards the other two types of
decision tables.
In part (b), the advantages and limitations of decision tables were correctly
identified by most of the students.
Q.5
Most of the students knew about different kinds of web hosting options though
many could not produce the exact names or were confused while giving the
descriptions. Some candidates mentioned more than four options which was a
waste of time.
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Examiners’ Comments on Information Technology – Spring 2012
Q.6
This was an easy question and attended by most of the students. The strong
password controls and password expiry controls were well understood. However,
only few had any idea about the automatic unlocking of the locked accounts. Most
of them were of the view that the user should be able to unlock the account using
his/her own password. They did not recognize the importance of an administrator
doing this job after proper investigation. Similarly, the importance of having a
firewall configured to organization’s needs and its constant update was seldom
mentioned. Some students were confused between a firewall and an anti virus
policy.
Q.7
Part (a) requiring advantages and disadvantages of parallel and direct changeover
approaches was attempted well.
In part (b) most students identified the pilot approach and the phased approach.
However, they were not very confident in explaining them and seemed to produce
the same explanations in either case.
Most students were confused in part (c). All possible permutations were
mentioned with almost equal frequency and without any logical reasoning.
Q.8
This was a poorly attempted question. Most candidates were unable to specify the
steps that form part of a Post Implementation Review (PIR). Most of them wrote
about bug fixes and user trainings which are part of implementation and not PIR.
The only point that most of them got right was the cost/benefit analysis.
THE END
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