A Surprisingly Informative Official OCR A Level Computer Science Poster

As Salamu Alaykum Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuh World!

A bit of a random post here since I was a bit hesitant about posting this but for some reason I changed my mind. This isn't the best of resources but trust me, I'm not scraping the bottom of the barrel and I have loads of other resources to share InShaAllah.

Anyway, this poster summarises both the coursework and exam components quite (and rather surprisingly I might add) well. So let's start with the coursework and I know I've already done a couple of posts on the programming project but the more the merrier.

The Coursework

The coursework can be broken down into 5 "simple steps":

1. Success Criteria: Before you even think about programming or anything, you need to know what will make your solution successful and that will require extensive analysis. If you're success criteria is wrong, then it doesn't matter how good you think your program is because it doesn't solve the problem! 
2. Planning & Design: (even though in the spec the design is separate and it's actually called analysis and design, here it refers to the same thing but a bit differently). The analysis is probably the bulk of the write up where you basically identify and research the problem, describe stakeholders and specify a solution to the problem. The design has less writing but isn't necessarily less work to do. It consists of flow charts and pseudocode that are used to describe the solution after you have decomposed the problem. After that obviously comes the description of the testing you'll carry out in later stages.
3. Development: this step carries the most marks (25 which is more than a third of the total) and can be split up into 2 stages: the iterative development process and testing. Again, there's less writing to do here but you have to narrate the process of developing your program by explaining your code. This way the examiners will know you haven't just taken someone else's code (something I highly recommended against in a previous post). Just copying and pasting a bunch of screenshots/dumps won't do, you'll need to explain the code step by step and make sure you don't just screenshot the final program, the examiners want to see it's development process along with explanation.
4. Testing & Remedial Actions: In simple words, this is just a narrative of the changes you made during the iterative development process. Obviously you can't make the perfect program immediately so with every "mistake" you make, show how your tests informed you in the development process. When the program is more or less finished and the final tests are being done, you'll need to test to inform the evaluation as well.
5. Evaluation: This is where you write about your tests, how successful is the final solution, a description of the final product, maintenance and further development and link it all to the success criteria originally made in the planning step. After all, the success of the solution can only be deemed by the success criteria. Remember, just because you have to write a lot, don't just waffle for the sake of writing a lot, clearly link everything to the success criteria and (as I've said several times before) STICK TO THE MARKING CRITERIA!

The Exams

I've already talked quite a bit about the new linear exams in my previous posts so I won't go into too much detail but the main thing is about these exams is that they're basically like the old ones dressed up in certain contexts to throw you off. Don't get me wrong, of course these exams have different content and are obviously harder since they're not modular, but if you work hard you should have nothing to worry about. 

The best thing you can do for yourself before the exams is get the highest you possibly can in the coursework, if you have a teacher that hates you then bad luck but seriously the coursework is (despite being really long and annoying) a lifeline in the linear system. Maximise your coursework marks to allow yourself a little breathing space in the exams.

I recently linked all the old and new spec papers together here and here which I highly recommend you do at least twice (once in open book conditions and once in exam conditions). Apart from that there's not a lot of decent resources out there, the past papers are by far the best so use them well.

I think I'll label this under programming project since I talked more about that in this post. As you know, I'm posting resources here everyday InShaAllah so you'll have more to study with soon. Anyway, here's the link for the poster if you're interested: Poster 

Hope this helps!