Discrepancies with Excel HSC practice exam answers. (1 Viewer)

[Popo Nana]

To get to the point, in practice paper 2, question 21 b) iii) asks which method if implementation provides minimal disruption to employees when implementing a new software system for a large supermarket chain. The answer says Phased Implementation, and I understand that it'd probably be best in a large-scale operation, but in everything I've read, it says the disadvantages of phased implementation include disruption to employees, as they cannot communicate efficiently (since some use the old, and some the new system).

The second discrepancy comes in the very next question, 21 c) i), where it asks for you to create an IPO diagram. In the answers, it has an IPO chart. Have I forgotten all of Year 11, or is this written incorrectly? And, more importantly, would you lose any marks for doing one instead of the other?

I had more, but can't remember what they were. Meh.

 

[Fosweb]

Well - this is a supermarket 'chain'... So you could phase it into one retailer, and only cause disruption to that 'one' retailer (but this in reality is a 'pilot' situation then...)
Having worked in a supermarket, I wouldnt want to scan every item twice, so parallel is definitely out...
I also wouldnt want it to die half way through an order/not work at all, so direct cut over isnt cool either...
But phased still would have problems... It just seems 'most' suitable, as you would maybe have some backup/other way of fixing problems. I think the phasing they mean is in one whole store of the chain though... So staff wouldnt have communication problems...
A fine example of the obscurity and stupidity of SDD course...

Thats definitely an IPO chart... But there are other formats you can have, and if you use another correct one, you 'shouldn't' lose marks...

 

[Popo Nana]

Right. Gotcha. Thanks Fosweb.

One more question. This confused me because I hadn't read what to do in a situation like this.

A binary search is performed on the array. How many passes would be needed before 62 was found?

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
7 9 12 18 21 37 42 53 62 79 81

A 2 passes
B 3 passes
C 4 passes
D 9 passes

 

[Winston]

Originally posted by Popo Nana
Right. Gotcha. Thanks Fosweb.

One more question. This confused me because I hadn't read what to do in a situation like this.

A binary search is performed on the array. How many passes would be needed before 62 was found?

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
7 9 12 18 21 37 42 53 62 79 81

A 2 passes
B 3 passes
C 4 passes
D 9 passes

Should be 3 Passes.

 

[Popo Nana]

I got 3 too. Answers say 2. I suppose it would depend whether you make the midval above or below the middle.

 

[SamD]

Sorry, the answer is 2 passes...

The elements in the array are:
7 9 12 18 21 37 42 53 62 79 81

-There's 11 of them, so the middle one is the 6th, in this case it is 37. (1 pass)
-As 62 is greater than 11 we've now just got the 5 elements 42 53 62 79 81
-Now the 3rd element is the middle one. (2nd pass) And it is 62 so we're finished!

Sam

 

[Glide]

Good point there Sam

 

[Fosweb]

Technically, is it still called a 'pass' in a searching algorithm?
Shouldnt a search algorithm be 1 pass in the worst case still? (As all this would do would be to linear search, where one pass of the list is rqd?)
Whats the definition of a 'pass'?

 

[SamD]

Hmm.. It sort of means, one go at checking out each required data element. It usually relates to a single spin around a loop, usually the outside loop.

Never really thought about it before, so I'm a bit unsure also!!!