TMA03 is marked and returned

TMA03 was marked and returned to me on Tuesday, which was a lot earlier than I expected. It took about a week from the cut-off date, which is very good going. I scored 95%, which is 1% more than the last two assignments, so I am moving in the right direction, albeit gradually. I thought this was going to be my worst TMA so far because the questions were not particularly appealing. This latest mark means that I have accumulated 24.57% towards my final module mark. There is just one more TMA to go - TMA04 - and then the online exam in June. The next TMA is worth potentially 13%, and the end of module exam is worth up to a whopping 61%. Then it's all over, until next October at least.

This week I started to get to grips the Python part of the course and dabbling with the Components of the Universe topic, which I started last week. Python 3 was really just leading up to a program to plot a decay curve for a radioactive isotope which I found relatively easy. I've read ahead a bit to Python 4 and it seemed difficult to get a handle on it at first because the computer programming material isn't very well written. Once I got going, I managed to complete it, but it was a bit challenging in places. That means I've finished all of the Python on the module now, so I can concentrate on the astronomy and planetary science, which are the last two concluding academic topics.

The tutorial on Python 3 by a normally good tutor was OK but a bit self-indulgent in places. It was useful, but it could have been even more useful still if it had focused a bit more on the course materials and not on just Python in general. Last Monday there was a faculty-wide tutorial on how to cope with your online exam. I must be honest and say it was a very long hour of two tutors saying not particularly very much, and I took it more as a box ticking exercise for the OU to cover themselves if students don't follow the correct procedures on the day and muff the exam for procedural reasons rather than academic ones. Not much applied to SM123, it was mostly aimed at examinations for level 2 and level 3 modules.