Exam / revision techniques

Hi everyone
The discussion has been very long but as I am probably as frustrated as many others out there I would like to share my thoughts with you.
I am about to do one of my exams next Friday and I am terrified. I have failed resourcing and although I did the resit few months ago we still havent got any results or feedback. We havent got the results from our written assignments either so now, when I am just about to hand in another assignment I am worried - and so are people from my group - that we should not be handing in our next assignments without having feedback from the first one. Cos how shall we learn and progress if we dont get any feedback on time? Being qualified as a teacher myself I am surprised that such things are allowed cos it seems to be against the idea of teaching/learning! At my current college we seem to be going through exams and assignmens without ever getting feedback and in the end, in summer, it is going to be: failed.But have we ever been given the opportunity to learn from mistakes? No.

Claire wrote that "It is unfortunate that there are times that the examination results do not reflect the capabilities of the students" - my question is why does CIPD doesnt do anything about it? I myself have spent 10 years at universities in 3 different countries and studying various subjects, I have BA and MA - and I must say that I have never experienced such exams where questions were so unclear. To be honest - untill I started CIPD - I never failed an exam for which I was prepared for...! Here, however, during my first year of studies we had a question on our first exam which only one person in the whole group understood...! out of ca 25 people. And what this indicates to me is that there is something wrong whith the questions, not with the students.
For my comming exam we had no preparation whatsoever, I havent been shown any past papers. I am so stressed about "what will be behind those questions" that I am waisting my time and energy trying to figure out how to figure out the questions rather than to actually learn. And this, to be honest, seems like a waste of time and not the point of those studies. The notes we are given in the class help little in the exams - so why waste so many hours doing it? why dont we practice case studies instead, for example?
Anyway, in my ideal world i would make these questions strainght forward so if my examiner wants me to create an action plan - why not simply mention it? I really think that right now many poeple waste to much time trying to figure out vague and tricky questions - and that shouldnt be the case as in real business my boss asks me direst questions.
Good luck to everyone who is taking exams. And to CIPD - please, please look into it. We are all here, willing to learn and do our absolute best but please let us get the opportunity to learn from mistakes, let us have proper feedback and questions which will demonstrate our knowledge and not ability to figure them out - or not.
Kind regards
Edyta

Hi Edyta,

I hear your pain! I agree with your observations, the exam questions seem to be the issue for many of my fellow students and is it most definately the case for myself.

I would love to see the questions written in a more straightfoward manner, actually getting to the point and giving you some kind of indication for what CIPD are looking for. However, they are obviously worded in this way to keep CIPD certification somewhat exclusive (why else would they be making it so hard?).

I would to see CIPD provide more advice and guidance on deciphering exam questions - preferably as a free resource to members! But I cannot help asking if it is a failing of the colleges running the course and would ask how CIPD monitors its providers and their standards/methods of tutoring.

It is obviously achievable because people do pass but I really think there should be some more advice available on exam technique and would really appreciate CIPD looking at this. Maybe I will write my own guidance book once I have passed and make a million!!!

Edyta, Clare I will pass this thread on to the appropriate team at CIPD as feedback.

Good luck with the exams to all taking them.

Johanna (Website Manager, CIPD)

Another L&D failure here my friends. I studied hard; read around the subject; attended group meetings and failed - but I'm not surprised.

During an ICS revision weekend, our class covered a range of previous papers and even the tutor, generally speaking, got the answers wrong. Putting it simply, the answers didn't and don't match the questions - most bizarre .... and then the author of that exam provides a review which, quite frankly, is very, very badly written and ridiculously negative.

The exam system is in urgent need of review and everyone I have met, successful or otherwise, agrees.

Wishing you all the best!

Greg

Hi All

What a great thread, I've just failed my first exam ever and was feeling so disheartened and you've all made me feel a bit better - so thank you. I've only dare tell my husband, I cant bare telling anyone at work or my friends and family just yet. I worked so hard, I just think how can I do it all again? But I'm gonna try. I'm studying PR and L&D as well so its going to be hard work! 3 exams in a row - yippee!

I'm thinking about buying the individual examiners feedback, has anyone found it useful or should I give it a wide birth?

Helena

Hi Helena,

I paid for the feedback after my second lot of fails. I would say it is worth it if you are confident that you have tried your best and really don't know where you went wrong.

The feedback is useful if you can remember what you wrote in the exam! But it doesn't give any great insight or inspiration on how to write the perfect answer and pass next time. From others I have spoken to I think the report can be extremely varied, some people receive a few lines about each answer, others get pages and pages (like me!).

I would probably recommend you pay for feedback on one exam rather than splash out a small fortune first time because chances are it is exam technique you are lacking, not knowledge.



Good luck for November
Clare

Would it be possible for those managing the discussions to attempt to get some sort of reaction from the examiners to some of the comments in this thread and that of www.cipd.co.uk/.../discussions.htm

Everyone's points are really relevant and we have very real concerns.

Karen

Hi Karen,

As you're probably aware, there are a number of exam-related threads open at the moment, on which CIPD staff have posted.

I'll alert them to this thread.

Steve

Are there no CIPD closed discussions set up for each tutorial group which enables members to post sample exam answers and then do peer review?

Distance learning specialists like the Open University provide these. They help ensure support and a degree interdependence between group members thus bolstering confidence and improving learning especially for those who do not live close enough to attend face-to-face tutorials.

My group had a list of fellow student email addresses but never shared information. We clearly weren't that friendly of a bunch!!!

The college never provided this level of support either, we would get the occasional case study from one of the better tutors and the session notes emailed for you to print off every week a couple of hours before the class started. So no David, this resource was not available but it may have been useful.