Anyway so let's get right into it:
"It's easy"
As much as dt students keep saying that the subject is bloody easy. We're actually lying. And not lying. It's kind of in between, but we like to say it's easy because it's somewhat straightforward in comparison with other sciences like biology, chemistry and physics and we don't want to agro everyone else. On the flip side, it's not easy because it's just too easy. Design Tech students ya feel me?
First of all, there's something called method marks and they're like marks for the right procedures or I'd like to think that they're effort marks for trying but failing to get the right answer. Method marks are like saviors. I believe method marks are given in maths, chemistry and physics (amiright pls correct me if I'm wrong). Let's take those subjects out of the equation, and that leaves us with biology and design technology, in which, both are content heavy subjects and there are no. bloody. method marks. FML.
Design tech has a lot of comparisons, advantages, disadvantages, application etc of terms and the mark scheme is very specific. So students must put down the exact, same thing written in the mark scheme (or something very very very similar to it) in order to get a mark. Let's look at a SL paper 2, nine mark question mark scheme (because I can't find any others on google atm):
"Discuss the aspects that a consumer may consider towards purchasing the table in terms of purchase, initial use, long term use"
LOL let's ignore the fact that I use "purchase" twice in a sentence......
So they're nice enough to list the three major branches but the marks come from the additional 3 we write under each "branch". The thing is, we can be either spot on, or way off. This is actually one of the easiest question I've seen, most of them are really retarded. We tried this question when we were last hour cramming for the exam
disclaimer: I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post question bank questions online so I might take it off soon
Yeah sometimes I feel like the exam is mocking that little bit of creativity inside my mind.
Indeed, we can bs through the exam and if we're lucky we might be able to get something right but that's what's lame about it. The answers may look alright but in reality, if it's not on the mark scheme, then you ain't getting that mark aight. In astrophysics, I could kind of describe things and there are no in betweens. IT ONLY FUSES HELIUM. END OF STORY. Meanwhile in Design Technology...... I don't know how to explain it very well but it's just endless frustration because it's easy to learn the syllabus, but the answers to the questions are hard.
"You need to be good at drawing to do well in design technology"
Another common misconception. The only time we ever drew together in class was when we were in the pre-IB times and when we were learning topic 1.3 (out of 12 topics). In pre-IB, we had to do an activity to transform a letter into something that has a name that starts with that letter. E.g. S to snake, F to fish or O to orange (LOL). The other time was learning to draw perspective, isometric, orthographic drawings and that is it.
I lied.
We also need to have some sketches in our design IAs but we don't get marks for good drawings, we get marks for good annotations. I'm going to quote Mr Gooch on his comments for my last IA, "your drawings are very detailed and it looks good, but you don't have enough annotations so that's why you were marked down in your development section". Okkkkooool. Damn reality is harsh. Design Tech is not an art class, it's a "explain your design" class. So people who think they're bad at drawing are clearly not at a disadvantage in the IB course. They just need to make the drawings clean and have lots of annotations.
Also, I haven't came across an IB question that wants us to draw anything.
"Most of the design Internal Assessments are composed of drawings"
Nononononononononononono.
The Internal Assessment has 4 sections,
1. Planning
2. Research
3. Development
4. Evaluation
5.* Manipulative skills (only in major design project)
And the only part that has drawings is development. All the other parts are just pure explanation, data, graphs, tables and so on. So no, we don't make picture books....
"The terms are so easy in Design Technology it's all basic knowledge"
Unless you're a walking talking encyclopedia like Anthony, your comments are invalid.
I spent the entire day before paper 1 and 2, just youtubing everything in topic 11 Advanced manufacturing techniques and I'm still confused with one or two. Especially lost wax casting :( I asked the dt kids in the morning and no one knows exactly how it works. Thank goodness it wasn't in the exam!
I've actually learned something useful in design technology. Like the range of adhesives for different materials. DON'T USE SUPERGLUE FOR EVERYTHING. Oh and they're actually called cyanoacrylate. HAHAHAHHAHAH cya-no-a-cry-late HAHAHAHHAHHAHA
Do you know what a feed hopper is? Do you know what a flash is? do you know what the draft angle in moulding is? Do you know what a building envelope is? Do you know what fuzzy logic means? Do you know what manikin means? Do you know the classes of levers? Do you know the 3 types of gears? I can go on forever and no, the terms doesn't always present what it actually means :(
There are easy terms like atoms, fibers, molecules and what not. There are also business terms like batch production, life cycle production and many many more but there are terms that are exclusive to design technology so hey don't look down on us. We're still learning things, and they're not basic knowledge because I had a lot of trouble trying to find videos on youtube that shows me some manufacturing processes.
"Design Technology is not a science"
I'm going to kind of agree with this. I think Design Technology is a bit like business but less on numbers, more on knowledge and the correlation between manufactures and designers; consumers and manufacturers; market and products; technology and everything; environment and
Hmmmm that concludes my confessions. Although the post is a bit awkward but is post is an accomplishment for me. I finally got back into the zone this morning :'D Side note, gotta make a post about qtac and all those tacs like omg what will be life? It's perfectly normal for dad to just break into my room and suddenly have a d&m session with me and last night he was like "we need to talk about your course choices before you fill them in", damn right I was shitting myself because he's a bit concerned with law and all that. He also said "男怕入錯行，女怕嫁錯郎 .........但是是相反的" which means "men are afraid of getting in the wrong industry, women are afraid of marrying the wrong man.... but it's the opposite for you". Maaaaaaaaan why you gotta be so, straightforward. They'll agree with my choices, then deny it, then propose something and convince me to want to do it, then deny it. That happens over and over again it's like they're tad bit too helpful sometimes that makes me feel like I don't actually get to make any life choices on my own. damn you reality.