Today, the result for semester 1 is released for all RMIT students including my program: Master of Computing (MC062). The result is as expected, except for 1 subject which I predicted to get “CREDIT (CR)” because I was blown away by the final exam. Previous semester (and now I can officially as my previous semester) I took four subjects, which were as following:
- Web Server and Web Technology (WSWT)
- Internet Industry Project (IIP)
- Web Services
- Document Markup Language (DML)
In this entry, I’ll make a recap on how I prepared the exam and the result I got for each of the subject. FYI, I have no exam for IIP (I won’t discuss this subject in this entry), so the marking is based on the project I’ve done for the whole semester.
Let’s start with DML. The exam format has been predicted coz my “head tutor” had told us merely the breakdown of the sections. The first section is multiple choice and the rest of the sections were “coding” type of questions. For the coding part I’ve prepared myself by doing a lot of exercise from the past exam or question from the internet. Basically what I’ve done is creating the schema for a given XML (XSD & DTD), creating a stylesheet to produce a particular result in the form of HTML from a particular XML, and practicing some xquery syntax and stuffs. I spent roughly “three days” from 1 o’clock till 9 o’clock in the evening to study in the computer lab; it was very tiring and I kinda forced myself a lil bit too hard for this. The reason being was 90% of the exam was “coding”, so the need to memorize some syntax is necessary because they don’t provide the documentation for us to see during the exam. I got “HD” for this subject. In my opinion, this subject is pretty easy and the assignment is a bit “too easy”. The first assignment can be done in 1 hour time and the second assignment can be done in roughly 6 hours (which was my working time) after they release it. The second assignment took longer because that time, I haven’t got basic understanding about stylesheet and stuff; so”Google” is my only best friend.
The second exam was WSWT. This exam was the hardest ever exam I have taken in my life. The exam format was simple: 50 multiple choice questions and some simple short answer questions for the second part. It seems easy but it was possible for a question to have multiple answers as well and for each question you answer wrong, you’ll have a penalty of 1 mark deduction. This was the trick and the idea was for us not to guess a random answer. I feared a lot already just before the exam. My mom said “I lose already before I’m actually go to the battle field”. The result was only “DI”, which is unexpected because I’ve predicted that I’ll get “CR” for this subject. I screwed the exam pretty bad and I know it by the time I left the exam room. The preparation was not good as well because the night before the actually exam I still levelled my creator in Ragnarok Online. I knew how screw this exam was going to be. But, getting “DI” is pleasently satisfying for me.
The last exam was Web Services. This exam was the last one for me and most of my friends had finished their exam earlier, so I’m kinda lazy already with the last but considering that my housemate, Evan, said that “his previous exam was pretty hard” I need to do enough preparation so that the result was not that bad. 3 days was enough because most of the stuffs was about memorizing and I only needed to gain a little understanding before I can expand it in the actually exam. For this exam, I got a lot of help from my friends explaining different concepts and ideas that might come up in the exam. Thanks to Maryanto for his explanation about “2-tier architecture” and Dennis & Evan for explanation about “Encryption and Web Security stuffs”. By the time I walked out from the exam room, I knew that 90% of the questions I got them correct and the rest are just two or three things which I was not sure about. The last day just before the exam, we studied together along with Glen and Ryan, pretty much we talked about other stuffs instead of discussing what might come up in the exam. “HD” is a sweet ending for this subject along with AUD $600 prize we (the team consists of me, Ryan, and Glen) got for presenting “the best Architecture solution” for the second assignment.
This semester exam was bitter sweet. For me there were sadness, madness, and happiness as well. I was sad because I didn’t do well in WSWT exam, I was mad because I kept on complaning why WSWT exam format should be like that, and I was happy because I’ve done extremely good in the other two exams beside WSWT. I couldn’t stop thanking God for His grace and bless so that this semester was done with a good closing at the end. I also couldn’t stop thanking my family and friends for all the supports during the exam period; it was a tight and hard but it didn’t stop me ever to stop working and pushing even more harder.
In the end, cheers to all of us. Let’s celebrate the day 
waiting for more surprises next semester.
Warm regards,
Peter Suryaatmaja Foeng~
