MAY/JUNE 2025

.C A R I BB E A N E X A M I N A T ION S COUNCIL

SECONDARY EDUCATION CERTIFICATE EXAMINATION

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

School-Based Assessment

1 | Page
 MAY/JUNE 2025

Rationale for SBA

The SBA is designed to give students the opportunity to demonstrate, on a timely basis, their
ability to solve problems using computer applications such as:

∙ Database Management

∙ Spreadsheet

∙ Word Processing
● Web Page Design
∙ Programming Language

Students must ensure they have the necessary backups of their work as this will alleviate any
undue delay of submission caused by malfunctioning thumb drives, hard drives, etc. A good
backup is for students to email their work to themselves periodically.

The SBA project is marked out of 90 and is worth 30% of your final CXC-CSEC examination
grade.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------
CHIC & CLASSY BOUTIQUE is a prominent clothing business located in
West Central Mall Guyana.. The business has been using the manual methods of operations in all
areas of their business. This year the company's management team has decided to computerize
its operations for the efficient running of the business. The computer system they purchased
came with general purpose software that has Word-processor, Spreadsheet , Database
Management components and a Pascal Compiler
As a test, the owner of the business would like you to use the various software applications to
carry out the following tasks for the month of November.
1. Produce a brochure for CHIC & CLASSY BOUTIQUE that informs the public about the
business and details of the upcoming Christmas sale.
2.. Analysis of the salary details of the employees for the month.
3. Storage of personal information of employees and their sales details.

2 | Page
 MAY/JUNE 2025

4. Preparation of letters for the outstanding employees, who achieved their sales target,
informing them about their commission amounts.
5. Design a webpage showing varying information about the boutique
6. Develop an algorithm and Pascal code to calculate and provide relevant salary information for
employees.

3 | Page
 MAY/JUNE 2025

SECTION A - SPREADSHEET

The spreadsheet package will be used to create a model that will allow the owner of the boutique
to manipulate and monitor the monthly salary details of the employees.

Currently, there are 28 employees at CHIC & CLASSY BOUTIQUE. There are Four (4)
categories of employees and EACH category attracts a different basic monthly salary. There are
SIX (8) supervisors, Seventeen(17) Sales Staff, one (2) Managers, one (1) Assistant Managers at
the boutique.
The categories of employment with current rates are given in the table below.
Code Category Basic Monthly Salary
MN Manager $27,000
AM Assistant Manager $23,500
SP Supervisor $21,000
SS Sales Staff $18,500

There are Allowances and Deductions in the employees’ salaries. The allowances are Daily
Allowance, Travel
Allowance and Entertainment Allowance. The deductions are Personal Loan, Health Insurance
and Investment. These are calculated based on their basic salary. The travel Allowance and
Entertainment Allowance are available to the Managers and Assistant Managers ONLY.
The rate of payments of these allowances and deductions also need to be kept on the
worksheet with the salary rate.
Code Allowance Rate (%)
DA Daily Allowance 11%
TA Travel Allowance 6%
EA Entertainment Allowance 3.5%
Code Deduction Rate
(%)
PL Personal Loan 6%

HL Health Insurance 1%

INV Investment 2%

4 | Page
 MAY/JUNE 2025

TASK A

You are required to:

(a) Create a workbook with multiple worksheets that will enable the owner of the business to
easily analyze, modify and monitor the salary information and details of the 28 employees for
November 2024. Data to be recorded include:

∙ IDNUM (employee's initials and three (3) digits, e.g. the employee George Brown has the
employee ID: GB102.)

∙ First Name

∙ Last Name

∙ Category Code

(b) Use appropriate functions /formulae to calculate:

∙ Basic Salary

∙ Allowances (Daily Allowance, Travel Allowance and Entertainment Allowance)

∙ Deductions (Personal Loan, Health Insurance and Investment)

∙ Total Allowances

∙ Total Deductions

See sample worksheet attached.

Category
#ID NUM First Name Last Name Code Basic Salary Daily Allowance Travel Allowance
SD 143 Sharon Davis SS $ 4,000.00 $ 480.00 $ -

(c). Add extra columns to include the Gross Income and Net Income.
i. Gross Income is calculated by adding the Basic Salary to the Allowances
ii. (Basic Salary + Total Allowances).
iii. Net Income is calculated by subtracting the Deductions from Gross Income

5 | Page
 MAY/JUNE 2025

iv. (Gross Income – Total Deductions).

(d). Include a row to calculate the totals of each of the numeric columns.

Save the file as Payroll_Task A_yourname

TASK B
a. Make a copy of Payroll_Task_A_yourname and Save as Payroll_Task_B_yourname.
b. The third employee on your list got a new job and he/she resigned from his post at CHIC &
CLASSY BOUTIQUE. Remove this employee’s data from your spreadsheet.
c. The management team decided to change the Daily Allowance (DA) rate to 13.5%. Adjust
this allowance in your worksheet.
d. Sort the worksheet of TASK B by Category Code, then by Last Name.
e. In an appropriate section of the worksheet use advanced filter to extract information for all
employees whose Last Name begins with the letter 'B' and is in the Sales Staff category.

TASK C
a. Make a copy of Payroll_Task_2_yourname.and Save as Payroll_Task_3_yourname.
b. Create a Column Chart to compare the Net Income and Gross Income for EACH Category.
The chart should be labeled with appropriate title and axis or legend. Save in a separate sheet
named CCIncome.
c. Create a Pie Chart that compares the Total Allowances paid for the month. The chart should
be labeled with an appropriate title and legend and each slice of the pie should display the
percentage. Save in a separate sheet named PCAllow.
d. Create a summary table on a new sheet called Summary Details; as shown below:

6 | Page
 MAY/JUNE 2025

DASHY’S BOUTIQUE Summary Records

Average Minimum Maximum

Gross Income

Net Income

Basic Monthly Salary

Daily Allowance

Travel Allowance

Entertainment Allowance

Personal Loan

Health Insurance

Investment
e. Create a pivot table showing names, basic salary, total deductions, total allowances, gross pay
and net pay

7 | Page
 MAY/JUNE 2025

SECTION B - DATABASE MANAGEMENT

Introduction

The database management component of the software that DASHY’S BOUTIQUE purchased
will be used to store personal details of the employees, their sales details (used to determine their
promotions, commissions and further employment) and their basic salary rates.
Import a table from the spreadsheet component with information on Employees: IDNUM, First
name, Last name, Category Code. Modify the table to include: Sex, Date Joined, Address, City
and Contact Number save the table as PERSONAL DETAILS TABLE.

The categories of employment with current rates are given in the table below. This data must be
stored in a separate table called BASIC_SALARY_RATES.
Code Category Basic Monthly Salary
MN Manager $12,000
AM Assistant Manager $10,000
SP Supervisor $8,000
SS Sales Staff $6,000
AD Admin $5,500
The SALES TABLE stores the details of individual Sales Staff ONLY. It should contain the
fields EmpID, Week1Sales, Week2Sales, Week3Sales, Week4Sales and TotalSales.

You are required to:

1(a) Set up a database with THREE (3) tables containing information on the employees' details
with appropriate field names, data types field descriptions and field sizes (where necessary).
1(b) Perform the following changes to the Personal Details table:
i. Rename the ‘Sex’ field and call it ‘Gender’. ii. Add a field called ‘email address’
and makeup email address for each employee.
iii. Sort the table by Lastname and then Firstname.
Call the new table Personal_Records.

2. Perform the following queries on your database:

a) List ID, first name, last name, address, city, contact number and date joined of all sales staff
that joined the business after December 31, 2024. The list should be sorted by last name and
then by first name.
Save the query as Qry2024.

8 | Page
 MAY/JUNE 2025

b) List ID, first name, last name, of all sales staff who created more than $50,000 in total sales.
Save the query as QrySales.
c) (i.) The business has decided to give a commission to all sales staff at a rate of 4.75% of their

total sales whose total sales was $50,000 and above. Create a calculated field called

Commission to calculate the commission amount. The query should include ID, first name,

last name, Total Sales and commission amount. Save the query as QryCommission.

c)(ii) Modify the query QryCommission. to include the following Address, City and save as

QryEmployees.

d) Use the Summary features to calculate the following:

i. The highest (maximum) total sales amount achieved by an employee. Save the query

QryMaxTotalSales

ii. The total commission earned by all the Sales Staff.. Save this query

QryTotCommission.

iii. The number of employees who are entitled to commission. Save as

QryCountCommission.

e) Prepare a Report containing the employees grouped by category code and sorted by last name
in ascending order and then by first name in descending order. The report should show the total
salary paid out for each category of employees as well as the overall total salary. The fields to be
displayed are ID, first name, last name, Gender, Date Joined, Full name of category, contact
number and basic salary. The first line of the report title should read CHIC & CLASSY
BOUTIQUE EMPLOYEE RECORD SHEET. The second line of the report should be
Employees’ Salaries for each category. Save the report as RptEmployees.

3. Create a form to display information about the candidates.

9 | Page
 MAY/JUNE 2024

SECTION C - WORD-PROCESSING

TASK A
You are required to:
1. Prepare a letterhead for use by CHIC & CLASSY BOUTIQUE with the name, address, city,
logo, telephone number, fax and email address. The logo should be a suitable graphic. The
letterhead must be placed in the header. Save as LetterHead.

TASK B
Using mail merge facilities, prepare a letter for the staff members who earned a commission to
invite them to an awards ceremony. Commend them for their hard work and dedication. Efforts
should be made to motivate staff to improve their performance and grow the business. The
awards ceremony will be held on December 14, 2021 at 5:00 pm in the Ball room at the Marriot
Hotel .
Save the letter as Letter1.
Modify the letter to include a QRY Commission from the database.
Save as Letter2.
For this task, save the main document as Letter2, the data source as Employees

3. Design a fillable application form for a vacancy for two sales girls and an assistant manager. It
must allow for the entry of relevant data on the applicant.

Web Page Design

The owner of CHIC & CLASSY BOUTIQUE has requested that you design a web page to provide
the public with general information about the boutique. The web page should include the following:

10
 MAY/JUNE 2024

| Page

∙ The boutique logo

∙ Display information about the Christmas sale.

∙ Links to the boutique email address and a web page which displays past information about the
boutique

SECTION D - PROBLEM SOLVING AND PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION

TASK A - Problem Solving

You are required to:

1. Develop an Algorithm (pseudocode or flowchart) that will accept the names of all
sales staff members and their total sales for the month. The algorithm should calculate the
commission at 4.75% of their total sales amount of all employees who meet the commission
criteria. It should display only the name, the total sales and commission of the Sales Staff with
highest commission as well as and the number of persons who received a commission.

TASK B
2. Design and execute a trace tablewith the cpolumn headings’name’, ‘total sales’,
‘commission’. The algorithm should also display the highest commission and the number of
persons with and without commission.

TASK C- Program Implementation

You are required to:

3. Write a Pascal program to implement the algorithm created in TASK A 1 of the
Problem Solving Section.

11
 MAY/JUNE 2024

| Page

12