Today

The day before

• Remove the IRIS plug-in and reinstall the latest version. An old version is the most common cause of failure.
• Install IRIS on both Chrome and Edge. If Chrome throws errors on the day, switch to Edge.
• Mac: System Preferences, then Security and Privacy, then Privacy. Tick Chrome under Camera, under Microphone, and under Screen Recording.
• Confirm at least 4GB of RAM free. Under 4GB and IRIS fails at Start Invigilation.
• Charge everything. Have the SCSC number saved: 080 000 1870, option 4.

One hour before

• Clear the browser cache.
• Close every other program and every other browser window. Anything left open can trigger "Device Disconnect Detected" mid paper.
• Open the assessment page. IRIS should pop up on its own.

If IRIS does not pop up

• Refresh the exam page.
• Still nothing: click the puzzle piece icon top right of Chrome, right click the three dots next to IRIS, choose Show plugin.
• Still nothing: clear cache, remove and reinstall the plug-in, close the browser, reopen the assessment page.

If the Share button is greyed out

You have not picked a screen yet. Click the small picture of your screen in the middle of the share window. The Share button then goes live.

If Start Invigilation is greyed out

Top left of the IRIS figure there is a text box. Click inside it. She starts talking and the tab activates.

If the camera or microphone will not select

Puzzle icon, three dots next to IRIS, View web permissions. Set camera and video to Allow. Works the same in Chrome and Edge.

If you get "An unexpected error has occurred"

• Mid paper: close IRIS, reload the exam page. You resume where you stopped. If it keeps happening, carry on writing and send screenshots to the lecturer afterwards.
• At Start Invigilation: it is RAM, or a camera and microphone permission. Close everything else and try again.

Finishing

• Download the question paper at the start. Upload the answer sheet at the end. Both happen inside the portal.
• After submitting: maximise the IRIS pop-up, click Finish recording, follow the prompts.
• Wait for the big green tick bottom left before you close IRIS. No tick means click Manage uploads bottom left, then Upload.

If it goes wrong on the day

Phone the SCSC immediately on 080 000 1870, option 4, or email Examenquiries@unisa.ac.za. Only mail sent from your myLife account counts. An aegrotat application must go in within ten days of the session, with evidence.

• Collapsed day: two 15 minute recalls. Thirty minutes. That is the floor and it is never skipped.
• Recalls never stop, whatever else falls over.
• Nothing new inside three days of a paper. The page switches you to past papers automatically.
• You race last week's you. The marked papers are the scoreboard.
• No morning decisions. Tomorrow is already on this page. Your only job is to read it.

This is the order the daily plan feeds you. Highest-yield first, so the must-know material is covered before each exam arrives. The plan works down each list.

COS3701 · theory of computation

DFA then Theorem 21 to a CFG, DPDA construction, CFG to CNF, Pumping Lemma with length (Theorem 35, always the tested one, 12 to 14 marks), Turing machines. Then 2PDA and reject/loop tracing.

COS3711 · advanced programming, open book

Meta-object and reflection, regex validators, XML serialisation, these three are in nearly every paper. Then Singleton and Memento. Model/View, signals and slots, QThread, Factory and QProcess in the middle. Facade and cloud are definition-only.

COS3712 · graphics, MCQ

Transformations and why order matters, the swapped-sines y-axis trap, viewing and projection, lighting and shading. Ranking is provisional until the mock papers are loaded here for a real count.

COS3751 · AI, current examiner is Ndlovu

Adversarial search and alpha-beta first, it is his biggest block. Then first order logic, A*, the 2k/2k+1 uninformed search, state-space design, then ethics and fairness. Decision trees, CSP and resolution refutation are older-era and sit at the back.

INF3703 · databases, MCQ, kept light until late October

Coronel Chapters 1 to 9 first, that is the gap. Then transactions, concurrency, distributed databases, business intelligence.

INF3707 · MySQL

Stored procedures with OUT parameters, self-joins, the big table-build question worth 26 to 30 marks, GROUP BY and HAVING with subqueries, subqueries with ALL and ANY, arithmetic precedence. Everything in MySQL, not Oracle.

INF3708 · project management

Earned value first, it is mechanical and high-value. Then network diagrams and critical path, financial analysis, risk management, WBS costs. Foundations and outsourcing are discussion. Motivation and function points get one light pass.

INF3720 · HCI

Sweep every historical Q1 MCQ first, Chipangura repeats them verbatim. Then the six-category requirement typology, discovering requirements, the design process, data gathering, evaluation.

COS3711 is open book. Prepare differently.

Open book does not mean easy. It means the questions go deeper because you have your notes. The winner is speed of lookup, not memory. Spend the run-up building a tabbed index: which pattern lives on which page, a one line reminder of each design pattern's shape, and your own worked Qt snippets you can paste and adapt. If you are flipping through pages hunting during the paper, you have already lost. Rehearse finding things fast.

COS3712 and INF3703 are MCQ. Prepare differently.

MCQ rewards wide coverage over deep essays. No marks for method, only the right letter, so a topic you half know can still score. Cover the whole syllabus rather than going deep on a few areas, drill the question banks hard, and learn to spot the distractors: the almost-right option, the true statement that does not answer the question, the absolute words like always and never. Watch the clock, because MCQ papers punish slow starts.

• Start times. The timetable shows 08:00 for all eight, but every time carries an asterisk, which means preliminary. The whole plan assumes 08:00. If the final timetable moves any of them, the only thing you change is your setup alarm.
• The good news. The earlier draft had COS3701 and INF3707 on the same day. That is gone. Every exam now sits on its own date, so there is no same-day juggling to plan for.
• The tight pair. COS3701 on the 15th and INF3720 on the 16th are back to back. The plan keeps INF3720 warm through the COS3701 run-up so the 16th is revision, not a cold start.
• Ordering is by exam frequency, not chapter order. Each module's daily topics are fed highest-yield first, drawn from your past papers and saved analysis. The full ranked lists are in the Top targets section above.
• COS3751 follows the current examiner. The plan is built on Ndlovu's Oct/Nov 2025 and Jan/Feb 2026 template: adversarial search, first order logic, A*, uninformed search, state-space design, ethics. The older-era topics, decision trees, CSP and resolution, are kept in the rotation but at the back.
• COS3712 ranking is provisional. It is ordered by known weight, not a real frequency count, because the mock papers are not loaded in this chat. Upload them here and I will rank COS3712 properly, the same way COS3751 and COS3711 were done.
• Past papers. The paper rows count upward per module and assume you hold eight each. Sort each folder oldest first and work down. Send me the real list and I will pin years to dates.
• INF3703 topic order for November is gap-first, Coronel Chapters 1 to 9 leading. Check it against your study guide nearer the time and tell me what to move.