Exam question

[CyberNerd]

see poll.

I'm a noob with no GCSE ICT qualification, and find this question ambigous. Whats the awnser and why?.

[webman]

Very ambiguous. I'd guess at printer driver as it's closest to the printer than anything else.

 

If you take 'generated' too literally all the answers are correct.

[CyberNerd]

I would say the top 3 because the word processor is the only thing that could be removed and you could still get the error message. Unfortunately Edexcel will only take one awnser as correct.

No A* for me

[webman]

I think it depends how you look at it..

 

If the operating system is communication with the printer driver (and in turn the printer) then the operating system could easily 'generate' a message that says "Out of paper" from an error code that was passed from the printer to the driver....

 

The word processor could also easily generate this error message as the error is passed from the printer to the driver to the OS and/or application.

[Espada]

The printer driver. More precisely an interupt will be sent by the printer to the printer driver which will send a further message/interrupt (depending on the OS) to the operating system.

[CyberNerd]

but surely the graphics card/monitor is actually 'generating' the message!

[webman]

The operating system's API function call for Msgbox() ?

 

Or the word processor's native functions for displaying feedback to users?

[Espada]

The error handling should be the part which initially generates the message, the rest merely passes it on or displays it. I would expect the driver to have some form of error handling built in as it would be that which would understand teh signal coming back from the printer itself.

[Espada]

but surely the graphics card/monitor is actually 'generating' the message!

 

 

That would be the visual info to the user not the error message itself.

[enjay]

but surely the graphics card/monitor is actually 'generating' the message!

No, they are displaying the message :-)

 

Isn't the message being generated by the printer, and not anything on the PC itself? Therefore all answers a wrong! In the absence of a "E - None of the above", I'd go with "Print Driver", as this is the bit with which the printer is communicating.

[GrumbleDook]

The I/O interface of the printer is actually generating the message but that isn't on the list ... the closest wout by the driver.

[kingswood]

I would say the Print Driver.

[mrcrazy04]

On the topic of ambiguous questions - I have had some "differences of opinion" with my exam boards in the past - like when I listed UK as a TLD (which it is, .co.uk is the SLD), in A Level computing, and they said it wasn't.

Download the "Preparation for working life" papers, one of the teachers was talking about them, and they were along the lines of

"Such and such happens to so and so, the emotion they would be feeling is:

A - happiness

B - Anger

C - Sadness"

[wil0]

Yeah none of them are correct in respect to the context of the question. The question states that

"A Printer runs out of paper when printing a text document. The error message displayed is 'Printer is out of paper'."

Is this on the PC or the Printers LCD display?

thats what would let you answer the question accurately, if the latter the supplied answers would be inappropriate.

 

it could appear asif the printer is saying it is "out of paper".

i could unplug the printer from the pc and make it print a test page from the internal memory, and it would say "out of paper", the printer is generating this message.

 

so the question is completely unclear and stupid...

I think thats why ive only ever got a B in IT at gcse and alevel i did do my IT coursework that was 100% of the A2 level mark in a solid 36 hours though, hell yeah.