Personalised Feedback Sheet for IGCSE Section 1 Types and Components of Computers

Name: Joseph Maguire

Target grade:
Score on this assessment: 35/58
Grade for this assessment: C

General feedback/class needs:
On the plus side, most of you understood what hardware and software is and could identify
examples of each. Also, most of you managed to do well with a bit of common sense on the
true/false questions.
However, overall performance in this test by the whole class was poor. Basic knowledge was lacking
and it was painfully evident that most students had not prepared or revised properly for this test.
Worst of all, students were not even reading questions carefully and provided poor answers which
had nothing to do with the question.
Common issues:
USB is NOT a storage device. In fact the answer USB is useless in any question, it means
Universal Serial Bus, and there are countless devices that use it. You must specify WHAT USB device,
A USB Memory stick for example, otherwise your answer is meaningless.
RAM and ROM clearly many students had not learned the definitions, were confused as to the
meaning of the word Volatile and could not provide adequate descriptions as to what each does and
is for.
Operating Systems Students could not explain what it does, worse, virtually no one understood the
advantages and disadvantages of GUIs and CLIs, despite this being clearly written in your notes.
Reading the question countless marks were lost due to students not reading a question carefully
and giving a totally irrelevant answer.
Your personal targets (to be filled in during the lesson):
1. Revise earlier so that I can consolidate on what I learnt
2. I need to practice writing answers in GCSE PEE format
3. I need to revise effectively for each test.
Review
I got 11 right about an advantages on gui and I put that its intuitive
I almost got 9 right 9. List 2 things that an operating system does. [2 marks]
(1 mark each for any of the 2 below)
I put it controls the gui but thats not worded right because it provides a platform for the gui to work
I got 16 wrong, What does PDA stand for? I put personal data application but I didnt know that so it
was just a guess.
Challenge/Extension
You will have been allocated an exam question to further your knowledge or help you to overcome a
misconception. Copy out the question here in full and answer it.
Describe 4 features of rom:
ROM read only memory
Its non-volatile
Its used to store a bios
You cant change it
Describe 3 drawbacks of using CLI:
You have to be precise when you type commands
If you dont know what to write you have to look it up in a manual
If youre not very informed on IT then it will be very hard for you because its counter intuitive