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Communications Technology Exam Review

A practice exam with questions from all 4 units, then the key facts from every lesson, unit by unit. For a deeper look at one unit, open its test review.

Unit test reviews

  1. Unit 1. Graphic Design~27%
  2. Unit 2. Animation & Special Effects~27%
  3. Unit 3. Video Production~32%
  4. Unit 4. Social Media, Society and Professional Practice~14%

Practice exam

32 questions, the same number from each unit. Each one shows the lesson it comes from.

  1. Unit 1: The Design Process and the Principles of Design
    1
    A layout has a caption sitting exactly midway between two photographs. Which principle has been broken?
  2. Unit 1: Colour Theory and Typography
    2
    In the RGB colour model, what colour results from red, green and blue all at full strength?
  3. Unit 1: Information Design and Infographics
    3
    Which chart best shows how Ontario's average monthly temperature changes over a year?
  4. Unit 1: Raster, Vector, Resolution and File Formats
    4
    A logo needs to appear on a business card and on the side of a truck. What should it be created as?
  5. Unit 1: Raster, Vector, Resolution and File Formats
    5
    Order these steps for preparing a photograph for a printed magazine page.
    1. 1Export a flattened PDF or TIFF for the printer
    2. 2Convert the document to CMYK for the press
    3. 3Edit in a lossless master file, keeping the layers
    4. 4Start from the largest original file available
    5. 5Check the pixel dimensions against the required print size at 300 PPI
  6. Unit 1: Vector Illustration and Logo Design
    6
    Which of these would NOT normally appear in a brand style guide?
  7. Unit 1: Image Editing: Layers, Masks and Retouching
    7
    Match each selection method to what it is best for.
    Magic wand
    Pen tool path
    Marquee
    Select and mask / refine edge
  8. Unit 1: Layout Grids and Print Production
    8
    Which of these is the most important reason to embed fonts in a print PDF?
  9. Unit 2: The Principles of Animation
    9
    A character's arm snaps straight to a door handle with no build-up. Which principle is missing?
  10. Unit 2: Animation Methods: Frame-by-Frame, Stop-Motion, Cut-Out and Rotoscoping
    10
    A 12-second hand-drawn scene at 24 fps is animated entirely on twos. How many drawings are needed?
    drawings
  11. Unit 2: Keyframes, Tweening and Frame Rate
    11
    How many frames are in an clip at 30 fps?
    frames
  12. Unit 2: Character Design, Rigging and Lip Sync
    12
    At 24 fps, a sound begins 3.5 seconds into a scene. At which frame does it fall on the exposure sheet?
    frame
  13. Unit 2: Character Design, Rigging and Lip Sync
    13
    Match each sound to its mouth shape.
    F, V
    OO, W
    E (as in 'see')
    A (as in 'father')
  14. Unit 2: Motion Graphics, Kinetic Type and Titles
    14
    A school news show wants every episode's lower thirds to look identical even though different students make them. What is the best solution?
  15. Unit 2: 3D Modelling, Lighting and Rendering Basics
    15
    Which change does the most to cut the time and energy used for a 3D animation project?
  16. Unit 2: Chroma Key, Compositing and Special Effects
    16
    Why do large film productions often combine practical and digital effects?
  17. Unit 3: Pre-Production: Story, Storyboards and Planning
    17
    At which stage is a problem cheapest to fix?
  18. Unit 3: Crew Roles and Team Project Management
    18
    Who is responsible for the schedule, budget and location permissions?
  19. Unit 3: Production: Shots, Composition, Lighting and Sound
    19
    Which shot size is standard for an interview?
  20. Unit 3: Camera Settings: Exposure, Focus and Depth of Field
    20
    Which setting lets the most light through the lens?
  21. Unit 3: Camera Settings: Exposure, Focus and Depth of Field
    21
    An ND filter has an optical density of 0.9. How many stops of light does it cut? (Whole number.)
    stops
  22. Unit 3: Post-Production: Editing, Colour and Export
    22
    Match each export setting to what it controls.
    Resolution
    Codec
    Container
    Bitrate
  23. Unit 3: Sound Design: Foley, Music and the Mix
    23
    Roughly what dynamic range does 24-bit audio provide?
  24. Unit 3: Live and Multi-Camera Production
    24
    Why should a stream also be recorded locally?
  25. Unit 4: Social Media Strategy and the Culminating Project
    25
    A post reached 800 accounts and received 44 likes, 6 comments, 5 shares and 5 saves. What is the engagement rate, as a percentage?
    %
  26. Unit 4: Designing Social Content: Carousels, Thumbnails and Brand Kits
    26
    A campaign has 5 messages, each needing a feed post, a story and a thumbnail, in English only. How many assets is that? (Whole number.)
    assets
  27. Unit 4: Digital Footprint, Privacy and Community Management
    27
    Which piece of information can EXIF metadata contain that is most dangerous to share?
  28. Unit 4: Copyright, Licensing and Ethics
    28
    A Canadian illustrator died in 1954. Under the life-plus-50 term, at the end of which calendar year did copyright in her drawings expire?
  29. Unit 4: Copyright, Licensing and Ethics
    29
    What is the most defensible way to use an AI-generated image in a submitted project?
  30. Unit 4: Cultural Diversity, Appropriation and Inclusive Production
    30
    How should you decide between person-first and identity-first language when describing someone?
  31. Unit 4: Safe Work Practices in the Studio and on Location
    31
    Under the 4-to-1 rule, how far from the wall should the base of an extension ladder be if it reaches 4 m up the wall?
  32. Unit 4: Media Literacy, Environment and Careers
    32
    Which best describes the difference between a college diploma and a university degree route in communications?

Key facts by unit

Unit 1: Graphic Design

The Design Process and the Principles of Design

  • The design process runs: define, research, ideate, develop, prototype, test, revise, produce, evaluate — and loops back.
  • Contrast, repetition, alignment and proximity are the four principles that diagnose most broken layouts.
  • Contrast means very different. Two things that are slightly different just look like a mistake.
  • Visual hierarchy is the order the eye takes things in, controlled by size, weight, colour, position and isolation.
  • White space is an active design element, not leftover area — it is what makes the rest readable.
  • Useful critique describes what is seen and ties it to the brief, rather than stating a preference.

Colour Theory and Typography

  • RGB is additive light for screens — all three channels at full gives white. CMYK is subtractive ink for print — no ink gives the paper's white.
  • Hex is RGB in base 16: #FF8800 is red, green, blue.
  • Colour schemes are defined by geometry on the wheel: analogous is adjacent, complementary is opposite, triadic is evenly spaced.
  • Hue is the colour, saturation is its intensity, value is its lightness. Tint adds white, shade adds black.
  • Kerning is between two specific letters; tracking is across a run; leading is between baselines.
  • Body text wants 45–75 characters per line and leading of roughly 120–145% of the type size.
  • Two typefaces are enough, and they should differ structurally rather than slightly.

Information Design and Infographics

  • The Gestalt principles (proximity, similarity, enclosure, continuity, closure, figure–ground) describe how the eye groups things before anything is read.
  • An icon system shares one grid, one stroke weight, one style and one meaning per icon; label anything ambiguous.
  • Pick the chart from the question: bar to compare, line for change over time, pie or waffle for parts of a whole, scatter for relationships, histogram for spread.
  • Bar charts must start at zero because length encodes value; a truncated axis exaggerates differences.
  • an honest graphic is close to 1.
  • For proportional circles, scale the radius by so that area matches the data.

Raster, Vector, Resolution and File Formats

  • Raster images are grids of pixels and degrade when enlarged; vector images are equations and scale losslessly.
  • Logos and icons must be built as vector — a flattened raster logo can never be made sharper.
  • and .
  • 300 PPI is the standard for professional print; 72–96 PPI is the screen convention.
  • A colour depth of bits gives colours. 24-bit is 8 bits each for red, green and blue — about 16.7 million.
  • Uncompressed size in bits is width × height × bit depth. Divide by 8 for bytes.
  • Lossy compression (JPEG) discards data permanently and degrades on every re-save; lossless (PNG) does not.

Vector Illustration and Logo Design

  • A vector path is anchor points joined by segments; curved segments are Bézier curves controlled by direction handles.
  • Handle angle sets the direction a curve leaves an anchor; handle length sets how far it travels that way before bending.
  • Place anchors at the extremes of curves, use as few as possible, and keep handles about one third of the way to the next anchor.
  • Boolean operations (unite, minus front, intersect, exclude) build clean logo shapes from simple geometry.
  • The five logo types are wordmark, lettermark, pictorial or abstract mark, emblem and combination mark.
  • Every logo needs full-colour, one-colour and reversed versions, plus a style guide setting clear space, minimum size, colours and misuse rules.

Image Editing: Layers, Masks and Retouching

  • Non-destructive editing keeps the original pixels: corrections on adjustment layers, hiding on masks, retouching on an empty layer.
  • On a layer mask, white reveals, black conceals and grey partly shows.
  • A histogram plots how many pixels sit at each brightness from 0 (black) to 255 (white); spikes at the edges mean clipped, unrecoverable detail.
  • Levels remaps tones:
  • The clone stamp copies pixels exactly; the healing brush copies texture and blends it into the surrounding colour and brightness.
  • News photos may be corrected for exposure, colour and crop but nothing may be added, removed or moved; ads may be retouched but must not mislead.

Layout Grids and Print Production

  • A grid divides the page into margins, columns and gutters; modular grids add rows to make modules.
  • Trim is the finished size, bleed (usually 0.125 in or 3 mm) extends artwork past it, and the safe area keeps important content inside it.
  • Document size with bleed = trim size + 2 × bleed in each direction.
  • Saddle-stitched booklets need a page count that is a multiple of 4; pages printed side by side add up to the total plus one.
  • Process colour (CMYK) builds any colour from four inks; spot colour is a premixed ink for exact brand colours, metallics and fluorescents.
Unit 2: Animation & Special Effects

The Principles of Animation

  • Timing — the number of frames an action takes — is the biggest single influence on how motion feels.
  • Squash and stretch conveys weight and flexibility, and the object's volume must stay constant.
  • Anticipation is a small opposite motion before the main action; without it movements read as teleporting.
  • Follow-through means parts keep moving after the body stops, and they stop at different times.
  • Slow in and slow out (easing) is what separates designed motion from machine motion.
  • Arcs: living things move along curves, almost never in straight lines.
  • Straight ahead is spontaneous and suits effects; pose to pose is controlled and suits acting.
  • Linear interpolation is the software default and is the clearest sign of an unfinished animation.

Animation Methods: Frame-by-Frame, Stop-Motion, Cut-Out and Rotoscoping

  • Frame-by-frame draws every image; stop-motion photographs a physical object moved slightly; cut-out reposes jointed flat parts; rotoscoping traces live-action footage.
  • Stop-motion needs a locked-off camera, manual exposure, focus and white balance, and controlled light, or the film jumps and flickers.
  • Armatures let a puppet hold a pose; tie-downs and rigs hold it in place or in the air.
  • On ones = a new image every frame; on twos = each image held for 2 frames (12 images per second at 24 fps).
  • Fast action is animated on ones to avoid stutter; slower action is usually on twos to halve the work.

Keyframes, Tweening and Frame Rate

  • A keyframe stores a property's value at one point in time; tweening calculates the frames between two of them.
  • Interpolation is the rule used for tweening — linear gives constant change, bezier gives easing.
  • Fewer keyframes with well-shaped curves beats many keyframes fighting the interpolation.
  • Onion skinning ghosts neighbouring frames so you can judge spacing and arcs while working.
  • Motion appears continuous above roughly 12 fps.
  • 24 fps is the film standard, 30 fps is broadcast and online, 60 fps is games and sports.
  • Timecode is HH:MM:SS:FF, and the frames field depends entirely on the project frame rate.

Character Design, Rigging and Lip Sync

  • Shape language (round friendly, square stable, triangular dynamic) and a readable silhouette make a character design work.
  • A model sheet (turnaround, proportions, expressions, poses, colour model) keeps every drawing 'on model'.
  • A rig is a control system: puppet pins bend a mesh; bones form a parent–child hierarchy with joints at the real pivot points.
  • Forward kinematics rotates each joint from the parent down; inverse kinematics moves the hand or foot and solves the joints, ideal for planted limbs.
  • Lip sync uses about 8–10 mouth shapes: animate sounds not spelling, always close the lips for M, B and P, and lead the sound by 1–2 frames.
  • An exposure sheet has one row per frame; a sound heard at seconds falls at frame .

Motion Graphics, Kinetic Type and Titles

  • Motion graphics are graphic design with time added: hierarchy, contrast and alignment still apply, plus timing and safe areas.
  • A lower third identifies a speaker in the bottom third of the frame: same position every time, a backing for contrast, quick eased moves, 3–5 s on screen.
  • For HD, action safe is 93% and title safe is 90% of the frame's width and height; text and logos stay inside title safe.
  • with about 15–20 characters per second for adults.
  • Kinetic type shows one idea at a time, times each word to its sound, and moves between reading moments rather than during them.
  • An animated logo ends on the static logo exactly as the style guide shows it; templates lock design and timing so a series stays consistent.

3D Modelling, Lighting and Rendering Basics

  • A mesh is made of vertices (points), edges (lines between them) and faces (flat polygons); quads for modelling, triangles for rendering.
  • UV unwrapping cuts a mesh along seams and flattens it so a 2D texture can be wrapped onto it without stretching.
  • Texture maps control colour, fine bumps (normal), reflection sharpness (roughness), metalness and transparency.
  • Rasterization is fast enough for real-time games; ray and path tracing are physically accurate but slow and noisy at low sample counts.
  • where ; a render farm divides it by the number of machines.
  • low-sample tests, denoising and re-rendering only changed frames save time and energy.

Chroma Key, Compositing and Special Effects

  • Compositing combines images from different sources into a single frame that reads as one photograph.
  • The alpha channel stores per-pixel transparency; a matte defines which parts of a layer are kept.
  • Chroma key makes a chosen colour transparent so a background shows through.
  • Green is used because it is furthest from skin tones and sensors capture the most green detail; blue is used when the subject wears green.
  • Even lighting on the backdrop and distance between subject and screen are the two biggest factors in a clean key.
  • Spill is green light bouncing onto the subject — fixed on set with distance and backlight, not in software.
  • A believable composite matches lighting direction, perspective, colour grade, and grain/blur/focus.
  • Heavy compression destroys the fine colour detail a key depends on.
Unit 3: Video Production

Pre-Production: Story, Storyboards and Planning

  • The three stages are pre-production (planning), production (shooting) and post-production (editing).
  • Problems are cheapest to fix in pre-production and often impossible to fix in post.
  • A storyboard shows one drawing per shot; drawing quality does not matter, clarity does.
  • An animatic is the storyboard cut to time with scratch audio — the cheapest way to test a sequence.
  • Shoot grouped by location and lighting setup, never in story order.
  • Coverage means capturing wide, medium, close and cutaway shots so the editor has choices.
  • B-roll is what covers jump cuts in an interview and makes shortening an answer invisible.
  • Hold every shot several seconds longer than feels necessary — handles are free on the day.
  • Release forms are required from identifiable people and property owners before publishing.

Crew Roles and Team Project Management

  • The producer owns time, money and logistics; the director owns the creative vision; the DP owns the look of the picture.
  • A Gantt chart shows tasks as bars against time, with dependencies between them and milestones as diamonds.
  • The critical path is the longest chain of dependent tasks; any delay on it delays the whole project.
  • Tasks off the critical path have slack and can slip without moving the deadline.
  • A team contract sets roles, communication, decision-making and consequences before problems arise.
  • Budgets list every item plus a contingency of about 10%.

Production: Shots, Composition, Lighting and Sound

  • Shot size is measured by how much of a person fills the frame, from EWS to ECU.
  • MCU (chest up) is the standard interview size; CU carries emotion.
  • Eye level is neutral; high angle diminishes a subject and low angle empowers them — angle is never neutral.
  • Rule of thirds: place key elements on the lines of a 3 × 3 grid, with eyes on the upper third.
  • Lead room is space in front of where a subject looks or moves.
  • A dolly changes perspective and creates depth; a zoom only magnifies a flat image.
  • Three-point lighting is key (main, 45° and above), fill (softens shadows) and back (separates from the background).
  • Daylight is about 5600 K and tungsten about 3200 K — do not mix them without gels.
  • Aim for audio peaks around −12 dB. Anything reaching 0 dB is clipped and permanently destroyed.
  • Microphone distance matters more than microphone price.

Camera Settings: Exposure, Focus and Depth of Field

  • One stop is a doubling or halving of light; aperture, shutter and ISO can be traded against each other in stops.
  • Full f-stops run f/1.4, 2, 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16; each step halves the light because .
  • 180° shutter rule: shutter , so 1/50 at 24 fps and 1/60 at 30 fps.
  • Doubling ISO adds one stop of brightness and amplifies noise; stay at native ISO where possible.
  • Each 0.3 of ND density cuts one stop: ND 0.9 is three stops, ND 1.8 is six.
  • Depth of field gets shallower with a wider aperture, a longer lens, a closer subject and a larger sensor.

Post-Production: Editing, Colour and Export

  • A non-linear editor references source files rather than containing them, so moving or renaming footage breaks the link.
  • Trimming is non-destructive — the source file is never altered.
  • Straight cuts should be the overwhelming majority of any edit.
  • A J-cut brings the next shot's audio in early; an L-cut carries the current audio over the next picture.
  • Cutting on action hides the join, because the eye is following the movement.
  • The 180-degree rule keeps the camera on one side of the line so screen direction stays consistent.
  • Colour correction fixes and matches; colour grading applies a creative look. Correct first.
  • Codec is the compression (H.264); container is the wrapper (MP4). They are not the same thing.
  • Export each delivery version from the master, never from another export.

Sound Design: Foley, Music and the Mix

  • A soundtrack is built in layers: dialogue, room tone, ambience, Foley, hard effects and music.
  • Mix the dialogue first; duck music beds about 10–20 dB under speech.
  • Video audio is 48 kHz; the highest frequency captured is half the sample rate.
  • Each bit of depth adds about 6 dB of dynamic range: 16-bit ≈ 96 dB, 24-bit ≈ 144 dB.
  • Uncompressed bit rate = sample rate × bit depth × channels; divide by 8 for bytes.
  • Delivery loudness is measured in LUFS: about −24 for Canadian TV, −23 for EBU, roughly −14 for streaming, with true peaks at or below −1 dBTP.

Live and Multi-Camera Production

  • Program is what is live; preview is the next shot, checked before it is taken.
  • Tally lights: red means the camera is on program (live); green means it is on preview (next).
  • The director calls the shots; the technical director operates the switcher; the floor director cues talent on the floor.
  • Shot calls come in pairs — 'ready' then 'take' — so the cut can happen on the exact word.
  • Upload needed ≥ 1.5 × (video + audio bitrate) × number of destinations.
  • Redundancy means wired networking, a local recording, backup power, a holding slate and a test stream before the event.
Unit 4: Social Media, Society and Professional Practice

Social Media Strategy and the Culminating Project

  • Plan in this order: audience, then one measurable goal, then platform, then content — never the reverse.
  • The four working frames are 1:1 (1080 × 1080), 4:5 (1080 × 1350), 9:16 (1080 × 1920) and 16:9 (1920 × 1080).
  • Impressions count displays; reach counts unique people, so reach is always the smaller number.
  • Engagement rate is engagements divided by reach: .
  • Shares and saves are the strongest engagement signals, because they cost the viewer more than a tap.
  • Contrast should be at least 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text.
  • Keep text and logos inside the safe area — roughly the top 250 px and bottom 400 px of a vertical frame are covered by the interface.
  • Captions include sound information; subtitles carry dialogue only.

Designing Social Content: Carousels, Thumbnails and Brand Kits

  • An asset matrix lists messages against formats; every cell is a file that must exist (or a deliberate decision not to make it).
  • A brand kit holds the logo set, colour palette with roles and hex values, typography, image style, graphic elements and voice.
  • Templates are built at native size with locked brand elements and editable content fields.
  • Carousels: hook first, one idea per slide, consistent layout, a reason to swipe, and a call to action at the end.
  • Thumbnails must read at small sizes: one focal point, three or four words, high contrast, honest content.
  • Batch production plus consistent file naming, proofing and scheduling is how small teams post on time.

Digital Footprint, Privacy and Community Management

  • EXIF metadata can include the device, settings, date, time and GPS coordinates of a photo.
  • Many platforms strip metadata on upload, but email, cloud links and file-sharing often keep it — remove it yourself.
  • Anyone under 18 needs a parent or guardian's consent on a release, and the media consent list must be checked before publishing.
  • Uploading usually keeps your copyright but grants the platform a broad, royalty-free licence to use the content.
  • Cyberbullying response: do not retaliate, document, report, block, and tell a trusted adult.
  • Under Canada's Competition Act, material connections must be clearly disclosed, for example with #ad at the start and inside the video.

Copyright, Licensing and Ethics

  • Copyright is automatic on fixation — no registration, no fee and no © symbol required.
  • The Canadian term runs from the creator's death: life plus 50 years historically, extended to life plus 70 at the end of 2022.
  • Canada has fair dealing with a closed list of purposes — research, private study, education, parody, satire, criticism, review and news reporting — not American fair use.
  • Criticism, review and news reporting under fair dealing require naming the source and the author.
  • The CC ladder runs CC0, BY, BY-SA, BY-NC, BY-ND, with each rung adding a condition.
  • ND forbids any modification; SA forces your remix to carry the same licence; NC blocks all commercial use including ad-supported video.
  • Royalty-free means pay once, not free of charge and not unrestricted; rights-managed licenses one specific use.
  • A full attribution names the title, author, source and licence.
  • An identifiable person needs a model release, signed by a guardian if they are under 18.

Cultural Diversity, Appropriation and Inclusive Production

  • Appropriation takes a cultural element without permission, credit, understanding or shared benefit; appreciation involves all four.
  • Sacred, earned or restricted items — such as a Plains headdress — are not costumes or decoration.
  • First Nations, Métis and Inuit are distinct peoples; generic 'Indigenous-style' imagery erases their differences.
  • Consult early, find the recognized people, compensate them, and agree review, credit and limits in advance.
  • Colours, numbers and gestures change meaning across cultures, so test with the actual audience.
  • Localization adapts dates, units, images, layout and legal text — not just the words — and French copy often needs 15–30% more space.

Safe Work Practices in the Studio and on Location

  • Power is voltage times current: . A 120 V, 15 A circuit delivers at most 1800 W; keep continuous loads at or below 80% (1440 W).
  • Several outlets often share one breaker, so add up every device on a circuit before plugging in lights.
  • Sandbag every stand low on a leg; on a C-stand, put the tallest leg under the load. Extension ladders use the 4-to-1 rule.
  • Battery energy in Wh = V × Ah; airlines generally allow spare lithium batteries up to 100 Wh in carry-on only.
  • WHMIS labels and Safety Data Sheets explain the hazards, handling and first aid for adhesives, paints and solvents.
  • Ontario's noise limit is 85 dBA over 8 hours, and safe time halves for every 3 dB above that.

Media Literacy, Environment and Careers

  • The five media literacy questions: who made this, who paid for it, who is the audience, what is left out, and whose voice is missing.
  • Misinformation is false and unintentional; disinformation is false and deliberate; malinformation is true material weaponized out of context.
  • Out-of-context reuse of genuine media is the most common manipulation, so check date, place and source before checking pixels.
  • Lateral reading — leaving the page to see what independent sources say — beats studying a suspect page harder.
  • Manufacturing a device usually costs more energy and material than years of using it, so keeping gear longer is the biggest single saving.
  • E-waste contains lead, mercury and lithium and belongs in an Ontario electronics or battery collection program, never in the bin.
  • 20-20-20: every 20 minutes, look about 6 m away for 20 seconds.
  • Monitor top at or just below eye level, about an arm's length away, elbows and knees near 90 degrees, wrists straight.
  • A portfolio is 8 to 12 strong pieces showing process and an honest statement of your role; a demo reel is 60 to 90 seconds, best shot first.