Investigating failures

[PJW]

A regular question at Exam Reviews is whether candidates can get their attempted answers back; the answer from the exam committee is always no, for reasons I understand.
However the principle of learning from past mistakes is good. I am one of those who is concerned by the current failure rate at the exam and personally interested in finding out why. I have my views of course but not based on much other than a little circumstantial evidence but mainly just prejudice I suspect.

However I have tried to be rather more objective and tackle the issue as I might in my "day job" when trying to base a course of action on something when there is a paucity of hard facts. See the attachment; take it with a bit of "a pinch of salt" but do consider if any of it rings true. I'd be keen to know other's views / experience.

If you were one of those who did not pass an exam module last year, see whether it helps you to think through why this might have occurred- what failure category(ies) might you have fallen into? More importantly, what can you do this year in order to get a better result in the exam in Oct 2010?

Whether you suffered a failue last year or are purely aiming to minimise the chances of one this year I do suggest it is worth doing some self-analysis before getting stuck in to studying; see getting started; initial self-assessment - share if you feel able to, but keep private if you wish.

In particular for module 1, do seriously consider doing a re-run of the same paper (perhaps the same questions or perhaps different ones depending on your choice).