CMAs and TMAs

On Tuesday I got the results back for my MU120 CMA43.  I got a very pleasing 96% and lost a couple of marks due to silly mistakes.  These mistakes I believe are due to the nature of CMA's in that being multiple choice I tend to go through them a lot quicker than I would a TMA thus resulting in not studying a question as thoroughly as perhaps I should.

Yesterday morning I got the results for my first TMA for M450.  Even though I got 80% I was disappointed in my tutor's comments, in that they were very brief and in some instances cryptic.  This left me feeling frustrated and confused, but after a lengthy telephone conversation with him last night I feel a lot better.  He enlightened me to what he actually meant, thus I now understand where my TMA was lacking and how it could have been improved.  I now realise that one of my biggest problems with my project is that I have had tunnel vision, in that I knew what the problem was (difficulty in sending bank statements) and how I wanted to solve it.  This has meant that when I was looking for research I was basing my investigation on the solution rather than the problem and finding alternative solutions to it.  In fact I now appreciate that my whole project is based around my solution, even it's title "Automated archiving and electronic transmission (via SMTP) of customer bank statements", as opposed to describing the problem, followed by looking for any solutions, discussing their strengthens and weaknesses, and then selecting a viable one.  With this in mind I now feel more confident that for my next TMA I should be able to produce a superior paper.