Sunday 16/08/09 Signet Mod3

[PJW]

The mock paper to be attempted in advance of the event at Signet is just about to be emailed to those registered and will also be posted here when this has occurred.

To get the best value from the exercise you should not cheat by looking at it when downloading / printing well before you actually sit down to do the mock. Rather you should be disciplined enough to take no cogniscence until the time set aside actually to attempt under suitable examlike conditions; i.e. one uninterupted stint, closed book, 10 minutes to read then 90 minutes to write your answers. Consider responding to the attached poll only after having attempted the paper.


Precisely the way we will organise and run this training day will depend upon the quantity and quality of the answers we receive by the submission deadline. Hence the preparatory work should be useful to you on several counts:
1. the experience of putting yourself to the test in exam conditions,
2. the opportunity to get personalised feedback on these efforts sufficiently prior to the exam for you to have time to address issues,
3. the ability to influence the sessions to be of particular help to address any of your areas of difficulty.

Similarly to last year, Reuben will be running the sessions related to Control Tables (part A) and I'll be tackling the written answer questions (part B). These will run in parallel throughout the day and in general (subject to considerations such as physical space) students will have the free choice of which class to attend for each timetabled session. Last year we found that around 30% attended all the part B sessions (reflecting the proportion that attempt 3 such questions in the exam) but a further 30% attended at least one of these sessions by foregoing the concurrent topic being covered within the Control Table session plan (don't forget that those deciding to offer Control Tables in the exam also need to tackle one written question). Inevitably there were slots when some wanted to be in both sessions, but in life one has to make choices and it generally seemed to work out pretty well.

There are 10 written questions and time will only allow a minority to be covered in any depth; hence the answers submitted will be taken as defining:
a) the level of interest in a parrticular topic
b) the range of depth of understanding / competence in certain areas.

However I recognise that the selection of questions to attempt in the mock must be based upon an individual's assessment of which they can currently do the best; this can be a bit different to the ones that would like to get help on during a training session. Hence when making the selection I will also take into account the results of the attached poll and any personal emails received. Therefore please make use of the interactive facility to contribute to customising the day to best suit your aspirations (it is counter productive to vote for the lot; try to restrict yourself to 3 or 4 so as to distinguish your top priority items). It may be that you'd want to vote for some of the questions you attempted but then realised that didn't go as well as you'd initially hoped; however you may well want to vote for one that you wondered about attempting but were deterred because of concerns over one part- you felt you might actually know it but weren't too sure if that was what was needed by the question.

[PJW]

The module 5 event having taken place yesterday, attention can turn to the Module 2/3 event on 15th and 16th August; ONLY 3 WEEKS AWAY.

We had extremely few attempted mock exam papers submitted for module 5 and most of those that were given proved extremely sketchy. Don't think we had enough from anyone for them to have received a Pass overall, though there were a couple of reasonable answers for individual questions.

There is no way that in two days we can attempt to cover what is needed for to pass two modules and it would be stupid even to try. We need to know where to concentrate our attention and for that reason we need to see where the difficulties are. The event is going to be very busy for us in that we have the very maximum of attendees booked that we feel we can cope and even so have had to disappoint many by saying that the event is already full.

So if you have booked, please be certain that you are going to come and do submit something in response to the mock papers that have been sent out. If you now find that you cannot attend, please contact Andy Wittonasap as there is a waiting list of people who would want to attend but for whom we have no space. We are deliberately not charging for the event but this not mean that there is no associated cost; please do the honourable thing and release a place that has been allocated to you but which you are not intending to take up. Similarly it is not yours to re-allocate to a mate instead; there is a waiting list queue.

We do appreciate that some have booked to attend the event not because they intend to sit the exam this year but to get a bit familiar of what is entailed prior to considering for future years. There is nothing wrong with that at all; in fact it is a very sensible approach and something we'd encourage. Let us know that is the situation and we obviously won't be expecting too much from you, but even so it is good to be able to understand prior to the event the position from which you are starting. We need to do the thinking how to split up and organise the day in advance; there are just too many attendees to be able to do too much thinking on our feet so as to optimise what we are offering once into the event itself.

It is certainly going to be an intense couple of days and even so I doubt whether we'd tackle more than half the written questions for the Part B of the module 3 mock exam. This has been sent out long enough now for people to have spent their 1.5 hours on it; if you have yet to commit the time to attempting it, then PLEASE DO SO SOON and E-mail me your efforts just as soon as you can.

Also take the time to add your vote to which of those written questions you'd be most interested in. Those intending to offer the Control Tables will only be needing to find one question for the exam. so in this poll I suggest you just vote for two topics. Those not offering Control Tables would need to find threee questions for the exam, so in this poll I suggest you vote for no more that 5. The ones you vote for need not be the ones you do in the mock- you may be comfortable that you did adequately well and hence prefer to prioritise a topic that you feel you know not quite enough about to have been confident. Of course your votes will be combined with those of other people, so the more topics you vote for, the less likely it is that your very highest priority topic will emerge as one of the overall favourites as the vote you also cast for a competing topic may tip the balance in its favour instead.

Please help us to help you- we are busy people as well with very limited time. The sooner you can let us know what you need / want from sending your attempts and casting your votes the better chance of producing an event that goes some way to satisfy your aspirations.

Just a reminder for those attending one or both days to make any travel and accommodation arrangements. Last year a relatively high proportion got together after the Saturday for a more relaxed chat in a pub and a sizeable contingent decided to then go out for a meal together whilst other people left to go home or do their own thing. I expect something similar will happen this year- if anyone not coming to the event on Saturday but would be in the area and would wish to join us, send your contact details so that we can advise where and when to meet up.