Need the technical architecture

Question

Hi,
I am very new to posting a topic in this forum...
please regret the inconvenience if I posted the topic in the wrong thread and also guide me for the right thread.
I am trying to bring a CD of practice exams, for the course GRE that is to be launched.
So I want a technical architecture for exam simulator of GRE practice Tests.
I need to design the technical architecture for this one. Where do I need to start from?
High level abstraction of the requirements:
scope is : Building Exam simulator
--> A standalone application where students need to place the CD and run the setup file of the exam simulator.
--> The setup file installs the software for the exam simulator.
UI --> There will be sections, like Section A, Section B etc., each section will have question, choice based.
Need to have a timer, previous and next buttons.
Data security is the main threat. If the setup is installed student should not know from where the data is being read or retrieved.
The architecture should be scalable so that we can add a wrap up of intelligence, for displaying the questions according to parameters we consider (speed, difficulty level etc.,) for a question being answered by the student. Also how to add the authentication of the user to resume the exam saved and to show the reports saved.
Guide me how to design it. Hope that I am at an entry level for designing the technical architecture.
Please do the needful.

Answer 1

First, separate out the functional requirements and express them in terms of the domain.
A standalone application where students need to place the CD and run the setup file of the exam simulator.That assumes a lot about implementation already, rather than being a requirement. What are the actual requirements which mean it cannot run off the CD and requires a setup program?
UI --> There will be sections, like Section A, Section B etc., each section will have question, choice based.Turn that into a domain model, then state the UI will display elements from the domain model in a suitable format.
Need to have a timer, previous and next buttons.Turn that into a testable requirement - does the student have a time limit per question, per exam, or is the timer an extra feature if you want to boil eggs?
Why do you need previous and next buttons? Do they have to be buttons? Is there a reason that navigation has to be linear?
Data security is the main threat. OK. Needs elaboration - what data needs protecting, from whom, whether it's an authentication or auditing issue.
If the setup is installed student should not know from where the data is being read or retrieved.Why? it's trivial to look at what files a program are opening using OS tools, so this implementation of data security is rather flawed. If you want security, you need to secure the data, not try and hide it and hope that the user is incompetent.
The architecture should be scalable so that we can add a wrap up of intelligence, for displaying the questions according to parameters we consider (speed, difficulty level etc.,) for a question being answered by the student. 'Scalable' normally means that throughput grows linear with hardware duplication. The other requirements here seem to ask for reporting.
Also how to add the authentication of the user to resume the exam saved and to show the reports saved.Break this down into saving, resuming and authentication requirements, then start to consider architectural solutions.