[Year 12 IT Apps] Short Answer Q9

Thu Nov 12 18:45:35 EST 2009

As a fellow pedant  I do agree with your comment.

However I would also like to point out that your reference to "Short Answer 
Q9" in the subject line should refer to "Multiple-choice questions Q9"

This was of course a problem started in the first email about this question. 
Shame :-)

Robert Hind (Semi-retired)
Ashwood and Traralgon
robert at yinnar.com

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Timmer-Arends" <timmer at melbpc.org.au>
To: "Year 12 IT Applications Teachers' Mailing List" 
<itapps at edulists.com.au>
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2009 6:31 PM
Subject: Re: [Year 12 IT Apps] Short Answer Q9

> I'm sorry but the pedant in me just can't let this one go.
>
> I agree that in the context of a spreadsheet 'returned' or 'displayed' are 
> pretty much interchangeable.
> But, I can see how a student who has programming experience might misread 
> this, and I agree with Colin's student. In the context of programming the 
> IF returns "HOORAY" not HOORAY and it has nothing to do with internal 
> representation:
> First, a function that returns a value does just that. What happens to 
> that value is not the function's concern; it may be displayed, it may be 
> written to a file, it may be used in a calculation
> Second, it is a well established convention that a machine-independent 
> representation of a string literal is to place the characters inside 
> quatation marks (single or double). This distiguishes HOORAY - an 
> identifier in a program - from "HOORAY" - a collection of characters, or 
> it distinguishes 100 - a number - from "100" - a collection of characters.
> So a function that returns 'HOORAY" is returning something different from 
> a function that returns HOORAY.
> How the internals of the software or hardware actually represent any of 
> this internally is largely irrelevant.
>
> Regards
> Robert T-A
> Brighton SC
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Mark Kelly" <kel at mckinnonsc.vic.edu.au>
> To: "Year 12 IT Applications Teachers' Mailing List" 
> <itapps at edulists.com.au>
> Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2009 9:05 AM
> Subject: Re: [Year 12 IT Apps] Short Answer Q9
>
>
>>I fear it's just another case of less-than-perfect wording.  They probably 
>>should have said "displayed" rather than "returned" but I guess they never 
>>thought that students could misinterpret it.
>>
>> Besides, if they really meant 'returned' as in a function's return value 
>> before it's displayed, they would be violating the ITA study design. Only 
>> Software Development would cover that.
>>
>> The only people who know how Excel internally represents text before it's 
>> displayed are Microsoft programmers.
>>
>> It would surely not be stored in RAM with ASCII double quotes fore and 
>> aft. In my old days of assembly language, strings were stored as raw 
>> (ASCII) bytes and interpreted as a string because the programmer knows 
>> the data is meant to be a string.  And in C, strings are represented as 
>> an array of ASCII bytes with a pointer to its starting point in RAM and 
>> (as far as I remember) a zero byte terminator.
>>
>> No double quotes.
>>
>> As a wise man said: "If a string returns in the RAM, but no-one's running 
>> a trace program, does it make double quotes?"
>>
>> Colin SUTTON wrote:
>>> Hi all
>>>
>>> A very able programming student (he won Swingame and writes Java code on 
>>> the whiteboard for amusement!) sent me this:
>>> ***************************************
>>> Hi Mr Sutton,
>>>
>>> I have come with a dispute. Question 9 in the multiple choice.
>>>
>>> "
>>> Typing the formula =IF(D12<D6,"HOORAY"," ") in D13 returns
>>> A. HOORAY
>>> B. NO MONEY LEFT OVER
>>> C. ""
>>> D. "HOORAY"
>>>
>>> Answer is A.
>>>
>>> Using the data provided, D12 (total March income) is 1400+150+800 = 
>>> $2350. D6 is 2500+30+20 = $2550.
>>>
>>> Plugging those figures into the formula gives =IF(2350<2550,"HOORAY"," 
>>> ").
>>> Since 2350 is less than 2550, the 'true' condition of the IF is 
>>> calculated: the literal text /Hooray./
>>> There are no double quotes displayed in the cell, so it's not D."
>>>
>>> The question asks what is returned by the statement, not what is 
>>> displayed. I wrote this on the examination paper indicating the 
>>> difference and the wording, so this answer in my opinion is wrong. The 
>>> value it returns is a string, hence the quotes, but a string is 
>>> displayed in a cell omits the quotation marks, but the question does not 
>>> state "what is displayed" but rather "what is returned".
>>>
>>> Hopefully you can return some light to this.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> Josh
>>>
>>> *******************************************
>>> My reply:
>>> Hi Josh
>>>
>>> My response is also A.
>>>
>>> The STRING    HOORAY   is returned.
>>>
>>> You TELL Excel the value for the true is the string HOORAY by typing 
>>> (and displaying in the formula)  "HOORAY".
>>>
>>> However, I can see your interpretation, but I think the RETURN is 
>>> HOORAY - a string. Our CONVENTION is to use the "....".
>>>
>>> However, writing on the paper is probably a COMPLETE waste of time.
>>>
>>> Anyone with thier ideas?
>>>
>>> Regards
>>>
>>> COLIN
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>>
>>
>> -- 
>> Mark Kelly
>> Manager - Information Systems
>> McKinnon Secondary College
>> McKinnon Rd McKinnon 3204, Victoria, Australia
>> Direct line / Voicemail: 8520 9085
>> School Phone +613 8520 9000
>> School Fax +613 9578 9253
>> kel at mckinnonsc.vic.edu.au
>>
>> Webmaster - http://www.mckinnonsc.vic.edu.au
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>> Moderator: IT Applications Mailing List
>>
>> RealMenDon'tNeedSpacebars.
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>> Teachers Association Inc
>
> _______________________________________________
> http://www.edulists.com.au - FAQ, resources, subscribe, unsubscribe
> IT Applications Mailing List kindly supported by
> http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/vce/studies/infotech/itapplications3-4.html - 
> Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority and
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> Association Inc
> 