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

Name: Corey Ericksen

Target grade:
Score on this assessment: 23/58
Grade for this assessment: F

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. To revise GUI and its purposes.
2. To learn the definition of ram and rom.
3. To be able to accurately identify hardware and software.
Review
One written question I got right was, Who would use a mainframe computer? I got
this one right because I remembered about what it said on the IGCSE website and that they
were big and powerful and my answer was university. One written question I got right but
not full marks was, Describe the difference between RAM and ROM. I put ram is volatile and
rom is non-volatile for two marks but I needed to add more detail like why it is volatile or
not. One question I got wrong was Give one disadvantage of a GUI. I got this question wrong
because I didnt remember what GUI was and what it does so I had 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 four features of rom. The memory can be changed, it remains memory when the computer
is turned off, it stores the instructions when the computer starts up again, you wont loose any data.
Explain why computers have both backing storage and ram. Ram is fast temporary and backing
storage