Informatics Practices subject, which is part of the CBSE (India) curriculum, helps in getting acquainted with computer terminologies and operation handling. In this article let us go through what this subject teaches in Class 12 and the significance of the course.
Informatics Practices – Overview
Informatics is a field whereby an informatics executive would be researching new information to help him solve issues pertaining to a diversified field, like medicine, physiology, biology, IT and so on. Now to gather information, one may refer to existing data and at the same time perform a statistical analysis to understand that data in correlation to the data found. Here then comes the techniques which statisticians or mathematicians follow, which we commonly refer to as statistical analysis or data analysis. It helps in gaining working knowledge of a computer system and peripherals. Also one can understand the application development process by learning the informatics practices. It sharpens one’s programming skills in front-end development. The course further helps in gaining skills in Database Creation and querying using ANSI SQL. To design, program and develop database driven web applications using GUI Programming Tool and RDBMS, this course is indispensable. It aids in understanding and appreciates open source and open standard concepts.
CBSE Informatics Practices Class 12 Syllabus
The unit wise marks allocation and updated syllabus for CBSE Class 12 Commerce Informatics Practice is given below:
Unit one: Networking and open standards
- Open Source Concepts: Open Source Software (OSS), common FOSS/FLOSS examples (e.g. Gnu/Linux, Firefox, Open Office), common open standards (open document format Ogg Vorbis)
- Computer Networking: Networking – a brief overview, Basic concept of domain name, MAC, and IP Address, Identifying computers and users over a network (Domain Name, MAC ‘Media Access Control’ and IP address), domain name resolution, Network Topologies, Types of network – LAN,MAN, WAN, PAN; Wired Technologies – Co-Axial, Ethernet Cable, Optical Fiber;
- Wireless Technologies – Blue Tooth, Infrared, Microwave, Radio Link, Satellite Link; Network Devices – Hub, Switch, Repeater, Gateway – and their functions Network security – denial of service, intrusion problems, snooping
- Indian Language Computing: character encoding, UNICODE, different types of fonts (open type vs true type, static vs dynamic), Entering Indian Language Text – phonetic and keymap based.
Unit two: Programming
It explains the basic concept of Access specifier for classes, Members and methods, the basic concept of Inheritance: need, Method Overloading, and Overriding, Abstract Class and Interfaces, use of interfaces. It helps in understanding MySQL database and HTML based web pages.
Unit three: Relational Database Management System
It deals with the fundamentals Concept of Database Transaction, Committing and revoking a Transaction using COMMIT and REVOKE, Grouping Records: GROUP BY, Group functions – MAX(), MIN(), AVG(), SUM(), COUNT();using COUNT(*), DISTINCT clause with COUNT, Group Functions and Null Values,Displaying Data From Multiple Tables: Cartesian product, Union, concept of Foreign Key, Equi-Join, concept of creating, altering and deleting tables.
Unit four: IT Applications
It comes up with the study of front-end interface (TextBox, Radio Button, CheckBox, List etc), back-end database (requirement of tables and its essential attributes) and front-end database connectivity (Demonstration and development of appropriate Front-end interface and Back-end Database for e-Governance, e-Business and e-Learning application)
CBSE Informatics Practices Class 12 Commerce: Recommended books
- Informatics Practices by Sumita Arora: It has good theoretical concepts and substantiates them with ample practical example.
- CBSE Sample papers: One can download the papers from the official website. The sample papers provided by the CBSE are as close to the real exam as it gets.
CBSE Informatics Practices Class 12 – Preparation Tips
Below is the marks division in the question paper:
| Regional Database Management System | 30 marks |
| Programming | 25 marks |
| Networking and Open Standards | 10 marks |
| IT Application | 5 marks |
Knowing the definitions of terms like co-axial cables, LAN, WAN, MAN and PAN and simultaneously making notes of the classes are essential. Practicing questions related to all functions and knowing what each function does is the basic requirement to learn informatics practices. For example, length () function returns the length of the word. For DBMS, knowing each and every query and how they affect the output is necessary. The function of all the queries to be studied well. One needs to master HTML by making HTML pages.
Before starting the exam, the first 15 minutes to be used to scan the paper and read the question paper thoroughly before jumping to write the answers. Among the questions with internal choices, it is advisable to select the ones that you plan to attempt, and frame skeletons of the answers you are going to write for these questions. It is better to start with long questions, complete that section and only then move to short or very short answer section. Highlighting the important points and writing your answer in points helps in enhancing visibility.
