From: awesley@neumann.une.edu.au (Anthony Wesley)
Newsgroups: aus.jokes
Subject: students
Keywords: students,exam,essay
Date: 23 Nov 92 03:03:01 GMT
Distribution: aus


These are excerpts from essays submitted by a first year introduction-
to-computers course, courtesy of my wife. The spelling etc is verbatim.
Apologies to those non-computer-literate people who may not find these
funny at all. :-)
For the rest of you, Enjoy...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Windows is an operating system rather than an operating environment such
as Unix, Fortran or DOS."

"Windows 3.1 is a common expression used to describe Microsoft Windows
operating system which is a software that transforms the way a personal
computer is used."

"The network users need powerful operating systems to meet the network
or heavily multitasking workstations."

"For the largest number of Windows users this feature [true type] would
probably be the most significant. Windows 3.1 now includes 5 new
typeface families and these can be scaled and printed on even dot matrix
printers by sending these faces to the printer bitmaps of each line."

"Drag and drop refers to the capacity for users to drag file name from
Window's File Manager and drop it onto another application, allowing it
to occupy either its own window or merely represented by a minimised icon
at the bottom of the desktop."

"Foxpro is a data based product ..."

"Also, the new Ctrl-Alt-Del command can now help many users from unnecessary
work loss." [no explanation given]

"...the virus will become active and in extreme cases, could totally destroy
your operating system, which would be very costly to have repaired."

"For it is usually against these two inhumane [big business and government]
categories of business that heavy criminal offences take place."

"Many probable solutions [to computer crime] have been suggested or implemented,
but computers being man made leaves them vulnerable to manipulation by anyone
who wants to extort or abuse the system."

"With this comparison it enhances software piracy crime."

"The scepticism [about viruses] has been exaggerated with uncomfirmed reports of
the Unix system being brought to their knees from a virus..."

On where viruses came from:
"Initially the virus was written to protect illegal copying of some
software..."

On copy protection:
"A bit like a world champion sportsman and there will always be one better."

==============================================================================

Answers from a recent exam for a simple computer literacy course, courtesy
of my wife. Once again, spelling/phrasing etc is verbatim:

Disadvantage of a ring network topology:
"no outside influences outside loop,hence would be lacking intelligence"

Disadvantage of star network topology:
"operators feel they are being watched"

Advantage of bus network topology:
"separates data flows in electrical field therefore categorising data"

Definition of bus network topology:
"computers are linked to one another via a cable and it forms a shape
like a bus"

Found in answers to a case study where students were asked to recommend a
computer system to a small businessman:
"Gary should use an address bus which carries memory addresses for locating
data and instructions <in> memory. He will be able to know which person
<ordered> what."

"...needs an IBM with FORTRAN...because it can run database, spreadsheet and
word processor"

"He needs a cpu with a 386 capacity.." (then mentions a mainframe)

"Needs an operating system that can run application software"

Fill in the missing word gave some amusing guesses:
They were given (in the course) the definition "a transaction is a business
event or activity". Most of them seemed to forget this because in response to:

	A(n) ______ is a business event or activity

the answers included:
hodown, party, Christmas, society, decision, buffer, MIS, marketing scheme,
cycle, system, project, transaction file, interrupt, meeting, seminar.

The part of the CPU that can be thought of as the "decision maker" is the ____

"hard disk" was the best variant here.

GIGO stands for _______
My favourite is "Gigobyte (which is 1000 Megobytes" (sic)
A good try was "graphical information generated operation"
Other tries were: a million bytes, graphic image, get input get output,
get in get out, go process input as what going out, general information goals
operating, go in go out, changes in changes out (!), government information g
office, general information.

_____ refers to the flow of electricity through certain materials with no
resistance.
Answers included: fibre optics, conductivity, voltage, current, antistatic,
pulses, token passing, data communications, flowing, parallel processing,
communication channel, analogue, analogue transmissions, chips, microwave, 
transmission, bus, channel, cable, node current, currency, semiconductor,
direct current, circuit, free flow, modulation.

anthony
awesley@neumann.une.oz.au
Newsgroups: aus.jokes