Question 1

What is NCEA AS 91359 about?

Accepted Answer

This standard asks you to show you understand how choosing the right materials matters when developing a product. You need to explain how you tested different materials to see if they'd work for your design, what you learned from those tests, and how that information helped you decide which material to use.

Question 2

What do students need to do for AS 91359?

Accepted Answer

1. Explain the link between what your product needs to do (its performance specs) and the properties the material must have 2. Describe the material testing or evaluation methods you used and why you chose those particular methods 3. Explain the knowledge you used to evaluate materials—like how the material is made, what properties it has, or how it might behave in real conditions 4. Make decisions about which materials are suitable based on evidence from your tests or evaluation 5. For Merit and Excellence: discuss how your material choices affected the overall design, including thinking about how the product will be maintained or disposed of at the end of its life

Question 3

What's the difference between Achieved, Merit, and Excellence for AS 91359?

Accepted Answer

Achieved: You explain how the product's requirements connect to material properties, describe the tests you did, show you understand the material basics, and justify your material choices based on test results. Merit: You explain why those particular evaluation methods were the right choice for this product, connect the knowledge you're using (material properties, composition, structure) to your actual testing decisions, and integrate material selection thinking throughout your report rather than isolating it. Excellence: You discuss how your material evaluation and selection decisions shaped the overall design of the product—including how the material choice affects maintenance and disposal—showing that material selection and product design evolved together, not separately.

Question 4

What mistakes do students typically make in AS 91359?

Accepted Answer

1. Testing only one material, or starting with a material already decided on, instead of genuinely evaluating a range to compare 2. Describing testing procedures step-by-step (like a procedure manual) without explaining what you learned or why the results matter for your material choice 3. Adding a maintenance-and-disposal section at the very end as an afterthought rather than showing throughout the report how these considerations shaped your material decisions

Material evaluation

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