That Blue Square Thing - AQA Applied ICT A Level

Applied ICT A Level Unit 1 - ICT and Society

Note: this page applies to the AQA Applied ICT A level specification. This exam was withdrawn in 2012, with final exams in 2013. The content will be retained as an archive and because it has some stuff that might be quite useful for someone or other

Section K - Content

There are 24 marks for the content of your pages.

Most (21) are for the content itself, with 3 for showing in the content the main sources for your information.

The marking grid for row K has changed really radically. This style of grid hasn't been used before 2011. You'll see that it includes:

referring to the issues
making relevant arguments - so talking about ICT rather than technology for example
dealing with benefits and drawbacks
presenting your arguments appropriately
the quality of your written communication - so spelling, punctuation, grammar and so on matter

You have to research and write your content - and source any images required as well. This will take some time!

Exam content - presentation slides. These are general slides which apply to any content

January 2011 content - a single slide summarising the sorts of things the exam paper is suggesting you need to write about.

One of the key things to remember is that the examples you use need to be about ICT not technology.

They key is that any information which is output from the system needs to be used by a person or a computer to decide on something. So, an advert which generates click-throughs might allow someone to work out the best places to place certain types of adverts (or the best time of year). A donation system will take funds from an account - and perhaps provide data for use in mail shots to try to solicite more donations at a later date. These are ICT so are fine.

You should probably check That Blue Square Blog for up to date ideas about the sorts of things to write about. There's usually a tag for exam topics - check the top right corner of the blog for that.

Don't forget: content needs to be taken into the exam as plain text files (.txt format) and image files. The sorts of things I've used on the example pages are a good idea - lots of small text files to split things up and make it more manageable.

Note that clear filenames are really important as well for this - and that the files need to be linked to the designs so that a competent third party could produce your publication by knowing what file goes where.

The Markgrid:

The markgrid for row K is a little different. Take a good look at it - there's loads of marks here.

Row K markgrid

An annotated version of the middle mark band is shown below. This is where you need to aim as a minimum - so make sure that you do all these things - you can't afford to miss on any of them:

Middle mark band - row K

Sources of Information

You need to show where you got your information from for your content. Note that this has to be in the content itself - so on the web pages or newsletter articles. I don't think it has to be full references though - that has to go in the bibliography. But it does want to be clear enough.