We are through to the fifth and final week of phase 2. Are you taking us up on the challenge of replicating the exam conditions while doing the mock exams every Saturday? Also are you keeping up with the Ethics examples, LOS and end of chapter questions? Please remember to record your results in your week 19 progress report.
The week to come:
Let’s continue where we left off last week. This week we are covering the 283 end of chapter questions and 104 LOS in the final 12 readings of the curriculum (reading 50-61). As we discussed the previous weeks if you have build a question log throughout the program, you may be able to reduce the number of end of chapter questions to go through to e.g. 250, 200 or maybe even less, saving you precious time.
Spend time to really understand the end of chapter question explanations in the curriculum books. Learning the answers by heart will not help you on exam day, but learning the underlying reason why the answer is what it is will. This is arguably the most important aspect of the revision process, especially for those questions that you struggled with. If you are pressed for time (like most candidates) skip the explanations for the questions that you got right, but read the explanations for the questions that you got wrong twice and slowly to make sure you really understand. Going through this will isolate many of the insights that you are still struggling with that could provide a marginal improvement on your exam score. Once you have revised the end of chapter questions, make a note in your question log of the questions that you are still struggling with. Work your way through this reduced list of tricky questions. If there are any challenging questions left after the second iteration rinse and repeat until you are able to answer every single one with confidence.
If you have followed along with the program you should have created your very own flashcards covering all LOS across the curriculum. Revising your answers to the LOS is slightly less straightforward than for the end of chapter questions, as the curriculum books do not provide guideline answers. The process of revising your flashcards should however help pinpoint areas of weakness at this stage. List the LOS that you are completely clueless about (hopefully that is not going to be that many at this stage), and if you have got the time dip back in and read small passages targeted to the individual LOS (you should have the relevant page numbers written on the flip side of your flashcards). Sometimes the answers can be found in the chapter summaries as well.
This week we are continuing to cover 5 examples from reading 2 each day (10 if you are targeting to get though them twice), as a result we should be wrapping this part of the test preparation up towards the end of this week. Hopefully this added effort has helped improve your confidence and enhanced your ability to get a great result on the all-important ethics topic area. As discussed previously, it is likely that a large proportion of the estimated 36 ethics questions on the exam will be based on examples similar to the ones described in reading 2, so a solid understanding of these provides one of the most favorable trade-offs between effort and likely impact on the exam outcome.
Exam day replication:
Once again spend your Saturday working through 2 uninterrupted mock exam sessions. Find a quiet area with a desk and a chair (maybe in a public library or somewhere else where you cannot be disturbed), switch off your mobile phone and bring only the mock exam, some paper, pencils, an eraser and your calculator. The morning session should run uninterrupted from 9 to 12, then take 2 hours break before sitting down for the afternoon session between 14 and 17. When done mark your score and redo the questions that you answered incorrectly until you can answer every question on the test accurately.
Please remember to record your results in your week 20 progress report.
Week 21 is our sixth and final week of revision before the test.