Example essay-style question about storage
The following question has been taken from an Edexcel past paper. It reflects the type of question that may appear in an exam paper.
The senior leadership team at a school is discussing different storage media. The administrative staff want to use the cloudA term often used to describe a location on the internet from which software applications are run and where data is stored.. The technical team wants to use serverA computer that holds data to be shared with other computers. Servers require server software. located on the school grounds.
Compare storing dataUnits of information. In computing there can be different data types, including integers, characters and Boolean. Data is often acted on by instructions. in the 鈥榗loud鈥 with storing data on hard disk driveA device used to store large amounts of data. connected to the school鈥檚 servers.
[6 marks]
How to tackle the question
Answering the question can be broken down into four steps:
- Identify any technology involved.
- Identify any potential issues associated with the technology.
- Identify any comparisons between the technologies.
- Construct your answer.
1. Identify the technology involved
In the context of this question, the technology is:
- cloud storage
- servers located on the school grounds
Some questions, like this one, will make the technology being discussed in the question obvious. Other questions may be more open ended, so you鈥檒l have to decide what the technology is likely to be.
2. Identify any potential issues with the technology
In the context of this question, the issues could be:
- How does each technology function?
- How is data stored and backupA copy of important files that is kept separately in case the original files are lost or damaged.?
- Who will maintain/upgrade the system?
- Where and when will the fileAnything you save. It could be a document, a piece of music, a collection of data or something else. be accessible?
- What problems might make the system unavailable?
3. Identify any comparisons between the technologies
For each potential issue, think of the advantages and disadvantages - in the context of the question. This provides a way to start comparing. In the context of this question, the issues could be:
- The school鈥檚 technical team will be responsible for backups, maintenance and upgrades of the system if servers on the school grounds are used. If cloud storage is chosen, then these responsibilities will be taken on by the cloud storage provider.
- If the files are stored on a cloud storage system, they鈥檙e likely to be available on the internet as well as in school. Would servers on the school鈥檚 grounds make files available across the internet? Is this a good or bad idea?
- If the internet is unavailable for some reason, will the files be available? They would be with the school-based server but not if a cloud provider was chosen.
4. Construct your answer
An understanding of how these essay questions are marked should help you answer in a way that gains more marks. The mark scheme will give 鈥榠ndicative content鈥, ie possible technical content for the question and comparisons/discussion points. This will be different for every question.
You are then marked on how you use that content to construct your answer. For example:
- How well have you applied your knowledge and understanding?
- Have you used technical terms?
- Have you got clear reasoning throughout?
- How well you have developed your comparisons?
- Have you included any evidence to support your arguments?
- Have you included any evidence to support your arguments?
- Have you used full sentences which are clear, logical and well-structured?