It’s less than a week away until the Cambridge IGCSE ICT practical tests. The 2016 Syllabus appears to include a new type of question.  Are your candidates prepared?

If you have read the 2016 Syllabus, you will have noticed a restructuring of content.  In amongst the criteria for the practical areas (sections 10-21) are a number of points that are theoretical and not practical.  Here are some examples:

 11. File management

  • explain why generic file formats are needed

12. Images

  • understand the need to reduce image resolution to increase transmission speed

18. Data manipulation

  • explain that other field types like placeholders for media, including images, sound bites and video clips are used in commercial databases

21. Website authoring

  • identify and describe the three web development layers
  • understand the function of: content layer to enter the content of a web page structure; presentation layer to format whole web page(s) or individual elements; behaviour layer to enter scripting language to a web page or an individual element

This is a significant change to practical tests in previous years.  It now appears that pupils are not just expected to be able to apply skills, they also need to understand and explain the reasons behind what they have done, or could potentially do.

To see how the questions are laid out, take a look at the 2016 Specimen practical test papers (available on the CIE Teacher Support site but only to authorised schools running Cambridge courses; please speak to your Exams Officer).

The questions take the form of an RTF document that must be opened in the most appropriate package (PowerPoint or similar).  The answers must be typed into the slides at the correct point, then printed out.

To prepare my candidates, I have produced a booklet that sets out the key information in bullet point form. Please feel free to download and distribute to your candidates; I hope it proves useful.

MS Word format:  Practical tests_knowledge

PDF format:  Practical tests_knowledge

Good luck!

BRC