Exam / revision techniques

I'm sorry that you feel so disillusioned with the programme, but I know that there are other skeptics out there.

It's interesting that you've turned to the community rather than your study centre for support on this. I would have hoped that your centre would have been able to help. I tutored the Employee Relations elective last year for the first time (fortunately with some fantastic support from my former tutor) and hope that my students felt quite prepared for the exams when they came around - and if not that they could feed back to me any other support they needed.

I agree that doing the questions under exam conditions is the best practice you can get - but you need feedback on your answers so that you know where to target any improvements. You could set up peer group marking, or ask your tutor to mediate and with the agreement of the rest of your group, what can work is that if you all answer questions and the best answers are shared with the group. With the case study I always aimed to get the written work done in 45 minutes, to allow 15 minutes reading and planning time (and a few minutes in case I got carried away!) and then 15 minutes for every 2 short answer questions - which gives you 7.5 minutes time to overrun/ plan answers for the second part of the exam.

It is unfortunate that sometimes there is a game to be played with the exams. I won't be popular for saying this, but there are times that the examiners have something specific in mind when they set the questions, which may not be the way that the question is interpretted by students. It is worth talking to your tutor to see what the politically correct viewpoints are on certain subjects - failing that read People Management religiously. You may not always agree with the practicality of some of the suggestions made, or academic viewpoints given but if you know what the CIPD thinking is, you can tailor your answers to that.

The examiners reports (once you get past the statistics!) will indicate that the better students will support their answers with academic theory and case studies - so get to know the main surveys, and a few really good case study organisations that you can quote in answers. I probably have a list of "acceptable" organisations somewhere that I can dig out for you if you think if would be of use? By "acceptable" I mean the larger well known organisations. Quoting your own is only helpful to you if others would have heard of them, but Sainsbury's and Tesco's are often used, as are First Direct and others. Always make yourself familiar with the People Management award finalists and winners for the past couple of years, as they are usually shining lights of good practice.

The other tip I have is more revision orientated - the scary part when people mention needing to learn the content of the surveys and studies is how on earth you get your brain to absorb so much information. I tried a year or so back through my local branch to encourage the CIPD to create audio revision materials. You can then fit revision around your life, by listening to tapes/CDs in the car, or when commuting etc. I made my own revision tapes, and actually found the act of pulling together the information and recording it myself to help my learning as well. It's amazing the facts that you can quote without realising it!

Perhaps the moderator has influence to get the surveys published as downloadable MP3 files? OK maybe not the whole thing, but the executive summaries are always useful?

Although at this level you may think that the answers require your thoughts - this really means your critical analysis of everyone else's thoughts!

Hope this helps. Don't get too downhearted - look at the pass rate statistics, at best 1 in 3 people will fail their exam first time around for each subject - so there are plenty of people in your situation, but I bet you get through next time around!

Claire

I'm sorry that you feel so disillusioned with the programme, but I know that there are other skeptics out there.

It's interesting that you've turned to the community rather than your study centre for support on this. I would have hoped that your centre would have been able to help. I tutored the Employee Relations elective last year for the first time (fortunately with some fantastic support from my former tutor) and hope that my students felt quite prepared for the exams when they came around - and if not that they could feed back to me any other support they needed.

I agree that doing the questions under exam conditions is the best practice you can get - but you need feedback on your answers so that you know where to target any improvements. You could set up peer group marking, or ask your tutor to mediate and with the agreement of the rest of your group, what can work is that if you all answer questions and the best answers are shared with the group. With the case study I always aimed to get the written work done in 45 minutes, to allow 15 minutes reading and planning time (and a few minutes in case I got carried away!) and then 15 minutes for every 2 short answer questions - which gives you 7.5 minutes time to overrun/ plan answers for the second part of the exam.

It is unfortunate that sometimes there is a game to be played with the exams. I won't be popular for saying this, but there are times that the examiners have something specific in mind when they set the questions, which may not be the way that the question is interpretted by students. It is worth talking to your tutor to see what the politically correct viewpoints are on certain subjects - failing that read People Management religiously. You may not always agree with the practicality of some of the suggestions made, or academic viewpoints given but if you know what the CIPD thinking is, you can tailor your answers to that.

The examiners reports (once you get past the statistics!) will indicate that the better students will support their answers with academic theory and case studies - so get to know the main surveys, and a few really good case study organisations that you can quote in answers. I probably have a list of "acceptable" organisations somewhere that I can dig out for you if you think if would be of use? By "acceptable" I mean the larger well known organisations. Quoting your own is only helpful to you if others would have heard of them, but Sainsbury's and Tesco's are often used, as are First Direct and others. Always make yourself familiar with the People Management award finalists and winners for the past couple of years, as they are usually shining lights of good practice.

The other tip I have is more revision orientated - the scary part when people mention needing to learn the content of the surveys and studies is how on earth you get your brain to absorb so much information. I tried a year or so back through my local branch to encourage the CIPD to create audio revision materials. You can then fit revision around your life, by listening to tapes/CDs in the car, or when commuting etc. I made my own revision tapes, and actually found the act of pulling together the information and recording it myself to help my learning as well. It's amazing the facts that you can quote without realising it!

Perhaps the moderator has influence to get the surveys published as downloadable MP3 files? OK maybe not the whole thing, but the executive summaries are always useful?

Although at this level you may think that the answers require your thoughts - this really means your critical analysis of everyone else's thoughts!

Hope this helps. Don't get too downhearted - look at the pass rate statistics, at best 1 in 3 people will fail their exam first time around for each subject - so there are plenty of people in your situation, but I bet you get through next time around!

Claire