May 10, 2008, 12:46 am

Study skills

Taking note of the marking scheme

 

You will need to pay close attention to the marking scheme, because you might either fail to supply a full enough answer, or waste time by writing too much. The number of marks allocated will usually be placed, in brackets, to the right of the question. This can provide an indication of the amount of writing required.

Although what follows uses questions and answers from M206, it should illustrate the mistakes outlined above. The tutor's remarks and final mark are in bold.

Too little:

Question

For each different widget (or group of widgets) that you decided upon in the previous question, describe the features that give it good affordance.                                                                                     [5]

Student answer

Radio Buttons - Afford pressing
Field - Afford selection of choice from a range of options. how ?
Slider - Afford dragging
Too brief, you needed to give details. What are the graphical properties of each widget that lend themselves to affordance?                                                                       1/5

Model answer

Affordance issues relate to the graphical properties of a widget and the way that these intuitively inform the user as to how the widget should be used.

Radio buttons - Switch the TV on/off & Select a channel
It can be argued that radio buttons do not display a great deal of affordance, however radio buttons can afford being pressed (or rather 'pushed') by, for example, having the buttons recessed relative to the surface (or background) of the GUI, thereby inviting the user to select one of the pair by placing the mouse pointer inside a button and then clicking. (1 mark)

Field - Tune a channel to an exact frequency given as a number
By including a default frequency (number) highlighted (e.g. in white on a black background), the field affords being typed into. (1 mark)

Slider - Set the volume
A slider affords being moved up and down (or left and right, depending on the orientation of the widget) by: including arrows indicating direction of motion of the slider (1 mark); raising the appearance of the block relative to the surface of the GUI (1 mark); and by the existence of parallel lines in the widget which indicate that the slider is to be moved between them. (1 mark)

Too much:

Question

The system of substitution in OU terms means that, in general, and for specified courses, the average mark for all your TMAs plus exam mark will be substituted for your lowest marked TMA. Does this system of substitution apply to this course?              [1]

Student answer

Yes, but not all courses allow substitution. If they do, substitution takes place automatically, but only if it's to your advantage. Usually the lower of the exam and course work determines the grade, and in most cases this happens to be the exam. However, exam boards have some power to award a better grade if you just miss this grade in one of (or even both) the components. The substitution score is calculated using the exam and course work at a 50:50 weighting. If this score is higher than the lowest TMA grade (which could be 0), then it is used instead of the lowest TMA grade. This can lift your course work average if you do well in the exam. So if you get 84 in the course work before substitution and at least 85 in the exam, it could be that substitution means that your course work score will increase to 85 or more (depending on what your lowest TMA score was). A simple yes was all that was required 1/1

Model answer

Yes(1 mark)

Copyright © 2008 John McSweeney