Your exam is 15+120 minutes long with a bit over 1 mark per minute. There are three contain 3 sections
Section A: 20 Multiple Choice Questions
Section B: 20 Short Answer Marks
Section C: 60 Case Study Marks
We will do at least one trial exam in exam conditions that I will mark and give you feedback on
You are allowed to bring: pens, pencils, highlighters, erasers, sharpeners, rulers and ONE scientific calculator.
You are not allowed notes or paper
The date of the 2025 exam is: Thu 13th November
The exams have a history. Imagine that you are a Visual Basic or Java developer making business apps for MS Windows in the 90s. Then evolve 30 years of exams out from there... XML is still new and shiny and will solve everything. Quicksort is magic.
This is slowly changing; e.g., some pseudocode is becoming more Pythonic and they acknowledge the existence of agile, etc...
You are best off making your own summaries
Condensing a topic/unit onto a single page forces you to think about what are the key concepts
Recognition ≠ Recall
(Re)reading or highlighting notes is not as effective as answering questions from memory
Plan your use of the available practice papers, use them to self-assess and guide your study
Sit the exam papers in exam conditions
you should mark and review them afterwards
Attempt the hardest questions first, but give yourself a time limit. If you get it, then good. If you don't, then your unconscious can work on it while you do the easier questions
Section C is hard to do well and needs practice! Read the examiners' reports very carefully and literally when you self-mark
Read the case study during reading time and then again before answering questions in Section C
Exam Revision Sequence 2025
Feel free to annotate the questions! Highlight/underline information. Tick off parts of questions as you go
Reread the question after you've answered it to make sure you answered what it actually asked. Seriously.
Look for the key action words: describe, explain, justify, identify, outline, etc...
Sometimes questions are ambiguous - read carefully and do your best to give the answer they probably wanted
Be smart about MCQs, eliminate the obviously wrong answers before working hard on finding the right one
In Section C (60% of the exam)
information from one question does not (necessarily) affect another. The Case Study and the Question Stem are all you should use for answering any particular question.
Remove the Case Study from the booklet during reading time. Make a show of it so that everyone in the class follows suit!
ALWAYS refer to the context / case study.
ALWAYS. A-L-W-A-Y-S. Without Exception.¹
Do not abbreviate (for some reason VCAA doesn't like it)
Give legislation by its full name then date,
e.g., the Health Records Act 2001
[not the Health Records Act nor Health Act 2001]
If asked to identify a line of pseudocode, write it out IN FULL
Integer not int, Floating Point Number not float, String not str, Character not char nor chr, Boolean not bool, Dictionary/Associative Array not dict, etc...
Only DFD, SRS, XML, CSV, PSM and SQL are acceptable abbreviations. Write SQL injection, not SQLi.
if a question asks for one thing, then anything after the first will not be marked! (If it asks for two things, et cetera)
If asked to compare or choose between options, then clearly word your answer to make it obvious that your are comparing
If there are more than a couple of marks for such a question, maybe add in definitions of the things you're comparing/choosing
If your answer contradicts itself then it will not get full marks
If you cross out an answer it will not get marked. If you still want it marked, clearly indicate that.
Combined with the study design, these are the authoritative source for what your final exam will be like
The 2021 Exam, Insert, Examiners Report,
The 2020 Exam, insert, Examiners Report
The 2020 Sample Exam
Work through old VCAA exams in exam conditions - here is a list of questions to ignore in 2020-2023
Self-mark and read the examination reports
The old VCE IT exam post mortems are also useful (but not authoritative): 2016, 2015, etc...
We have a range of commercial exams & solutions (DLTV, QAT, Insight and Adrian Janson) of which you'll get paper copies
Work through these in exam conditions, then self-mark (using solutions on Classroom) and prepare your consequent study
Ask if you need another copy
Study design and Dot Points
Textbooks (extra ones in the library) & this site!
Flashcards
VCE Software Development (Brainscape)
NelsonNet : Software Development Key Terms (feel free to turn these into flash cards and share with me)
Slides on this Site and VCE IT
Summary notes from Lorenc Pekaj (FCC 2016), and from Charles Denison (2016)
There is some overlap with the HSC Exams, so looking up specific topics can be useful - just be careful of the differences!
Searchable HSC Exams: hscsearch.com
HSC NESA provided exam prep resources: HSC HUB - TAS Courses - SDD
AP CSP has some good overlap and resources
the Khan Academy implementation is good for self-quizzes
especially good for the cybersecurity and practicing tricky pseudocode questions
A Level CS
TODO - ADD LINKS
Harvard CS50 has some good lectures and resources for algorithms and programming