INF303D/DBS401I/DBP401E/102/0/2010

PRINCIPLES OF DATABASES
GRONDBEGRIPPE VAN DATABASISSE
Studiebrief 102
Tutorial Letter 102

INF303D/DBS401I/DBP401E
CONTENTS/INHOUD:
Examination guidelines/Eksamenriglyne

SCHOOL OF COMPUTING
SKOOL VIR REKENAARKUNDE

FOR AFRIKAANS STUDENTS / VIR AFRIKAANSE STUDENTE

Aangesien die voorgeskrewe boek in Engels is, word die studiebrief in Engels gegee. Indien u enige probleme
met die Engels ondervind, kontak asseblief een van die INF303D/DBS401I/DBP401E dosente.

CONTENTS
1.
2.
3.
4.

Tutorial letters received during 2010.

General discussion on the examination paper: October/November 2010 AND January/February 2011
Queries during the exam
Example of last years examination paper

1. TUTORIAL LETTERS RECEIVED DURING 2010

You should have received the following Tutorial Letters:
INF303D/101/2010

First tutorial letter containing important administrative

information and Assignments 1 and 2.

COSALLF/301/2010

General information related to your studies at Unisa.

INF303D/201/2010

Solution for Assignment 01

INF303D/202/2010

Solution for Assignment 02

INF303D/102/2010

Examination letter (This letter)

According to an UNISAs examination regulation, the assignments contribute towards the year mark which
counts 10% towards your final mark.

2. THE EXAMINATION PAPER: October/November 2010 and January/February 2011

The examination consists of a two hour paper which counts 100 marks. You should answer all the questions;
there will be no choices between questions.
You should study the following:

The chapters of the prescribed book listed in tutorial letter 101.

All the tutorial letters, including the solutions to the assignments.

An example of a previous exam paper can be downloaded from myUnisa. (Please note that some questions are
not applicable anymore because content has changed for 2010).

INF303D/102

Please note the following:

Please do not leave out any of the work.
You may be given a problem statement from which you have to draw an E-R diagram and derive a set of
representative 3NF relations. This problem statement may contain examples of documents such as reports
from which you have to capture some of the entities and relations.
You may be asked to draw a dependency diagram for a given problem.
You may be given a dependency diagram and asked to interpret such a diagram.
You could be asked to normalize a relation or set of relations. You must be able to normalize up to 3NF or
BCNF.
When will you know that you have mastered all the theory in the syllabus? When you can answer all the
Review Questions at the end of each chapter without the help of the prescribed book.
When will you know you have mastered all the practical work in the syllabus? When you can answer all the
Problems at the end of each chapter without the help of the prescribed book.
Mark allocation:
Section A: 20 marks (one mark per question) consist of multiple choice questions based on all the theory that
you should know for this examination. Negative marking will not be applied.
Section B: 80 marks, from chapters as indicated in the table below.
Syllabus
Database systems and data models
The Relational Database Model and
Entity Relationship (ER) modelling
Normalization of Database Tables
Advanced Data modelling

Chapters in R & C
Ch 1 & 2

Ch 3 and 5

Ch 7
Ch 6

Transaction Management and

Concurrency Control

Ch 12

Distributed Database Management systems

Ch 14

Database Connectivity and Web Development

Ch 16

The theoretical questions (80 marks) focus on the aims and objectives as given for each unit in the study
guide and the questions set for the assignments. The exam question style is similar to the assignment
questions and you can therefore prepare yourself for the exam by doing the assignment questions and
checking your answers against the model solutions.
Multiple-choice questions (20 marks) will be asked.

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3.

QUERIES

If you have any queries regarding the content of your study material during your preparation for the examination,
you may contact the lecturers. The availability of the lecturers is published on a daily basis on
http://osprey.unisa.ac.za/reg.htm (click on registered students). The best way to contact us is via e-mail,
through the module e-mail address. You may also contact us by phone. However, we receive hundreds of phone
calls during the examination period. If the telephone is engaged (or when ringing continuously, which means you
are on a waiting list on the Unisa exchange), please be patient and try again later.

UNISA2010