I am not sure if it is just me, but it feels like TM129 is starting to drag. This happened while I was finishing off TMA03, which I have just submitted.
TMA03 was the now familiar combination of a few technical questions, an essay question, and the reflective e-Portfolio question. I do fine with the technical questions and enjoy the essay and (perhaps uncommonly) the reflective questions.
Unfortunately, I find it difficult to discern exactly what the mark scheme is looking for when answering the essay question. Invariably, the feedback from my tutor is something along the lines of needing to expand on this or that point.
This all sounds perfectly plausible after the fact, but it is not so obvious when writing the essay. The questions do give you a structure for your answer and tell you how many marks per question. It sounds like they lay it all out for you. I suspect, essay questions in Stages 2 and 3 might not be so generous.
I try to approximate a proportion of the word limit against the number of marks for each question. It is still difficult to get all the marks.
Moving on, it is something to realise that I have only just over a month left of Stage 1. By then, barring disastrous TMA03 and EMA results, I will be a third of the way through my degree.
Just the EMA to go. The format is slightly different. It includes a few short-answer technical questions and an extended reflective e-Portfolio question. However, most of the marks go towards a choice out of three questions. The first is an extended technical question (networking). The other two are extended essay questions (robotics and Linux).
For my sins, I intend to answer the two essay questions. This is partly because the networking block feels like a lifetime ago and, also, because I really do enjoy programming.
Well, I will find out whether that was a wise decision when the results come in; sometime around the middle to end of July so I am told