M257, off to a quick start

Tried to get ahead a bit this week whilst away in Finland working, so I did the first two CMA's for M257. I really don't like multiple choice, some of the questions are really ambiguous, and there is no opportunity to justify your answer, so it's a bit of a lottery at times. Sometimes I think having good knowledge is worse than having little, as you can see ambiguities that perhaps was not even seen by those responsible for setting the questions.


I had an example when trying a past paper for M255, which said "which of the following two are correct...". There were 3 that were certainly correct, and a further one that neither I (nor those setting the question I suspect) could say was true or false for sure, so I just had to give my best guess at which two they were after.


Give me the coding any day!

M255 TMA04 result

Slipped a bit on this one with 95% due to a couple of daft errors (complacency setting in again). It seems ages since I sent it in now, having finished it at the beginning of July to get it out of the way for summer. Only the exam to go now!

M253 TMA02 is marked

The M253 TMA02 assignment mark showed up today. According to the Undergraduate Handbook, I should have had this within 14 days of the cut-off, which was 29th August, so it was actually slightly late, adding even more undue stress. If ever there was a module where you need your assignments marking early, then this is it, for the following reasons

(a) Each assignment has a threshold mark which you must achieve (no point in continuing if you've already failed)
(b) Without the feedback to know what you have done right/wrong, you are unsure where to go next

The result is that you are left dangling, not really wanting to do anything until you know it's not going to be wasted effort, and yet there is a schedule of activities that need completing. To be honest, I've done very little since I sent in the last assignment, and now there is some catching up to be done.

btw. I scored 78% this time, which was an improvement over my 75% for the previous TMA. Still, the worst two marks I've had for any TMA's to-date, but comfortably out of the danger-zone.

Roll on October, when I'm finally done with this module.

M150 - Materials consigned to the green bin

Since M150 is no more, and having judged that there is zero demand for the course material on ebay and because none of it is (or was ever) much use to me, it's now all been sent for recycling.

At least I have some space for the newer stuff!

M257 - Materials arrived

The material for M257 arrived whilst I was away with work this week. I opened it up this morning, and went through the first two books really quickly just out of curiosity. So far I like what I'm seeing. Seems that M257 does thing the "Java way" and not imposing some of the distinctly strange coding practices that were used in M255. I'm going to be happier doing this module.