Advice please on written answers

[PJW]

I have just read through some past paper exam questions and am a little bewildered where to start in answering them as I feel I do not have the experience to give a competent answer. What I would like to do is perhaps have a go at a question and see from there what happens but am a little tentative in submitting as for some I dont have a clue where to start. I just want to build up my experience in answering these questions from the 2002 aper and onwards. what is the best way to attack these questions through the forum if you are severly lacking the knowledge to answer them without draining the resources here in the forum. does any body have a clear strategy for answering them and the format expected?
Many thanks
Ian

There is no fixed format. Answer in a way that you are comfortable with and that is used appropriately - diagrams, bulleted lists, tables, sentences and paragraphs.

If you are that unsure, just start off with a list of the key points that you think are relevant, or even with a description of what you think the question is asking for.

You have hit one important nail right on the head thought which is that experience is very important - you cannot "learn" a format to pass the exam - it is all about demonstrating to the examiner that you can apply sound engineering judgement to a situation that demands a good underpinning knowledge of signalling to understand.

Try putting a skeleton answer up and get feedback on that, and then flesh it out a bit.

Not sure if that helps.

Getting started is a problem that many people face.
To tackle a question well:
a) you need to have sufficient general domain knowledge to properly understand what is being asked
b) you need to have the specific (but possibly not always extremely detailed) knowledge that the question seeks from you
c) you need to read very carefully the nuances of the question and "explore" its scope- make it as wide as possible without straying off topic
d) you need to gather a host of pertinent relevant facts and sift through them to select the best fit to the question, taking into account the mark allocation per sub section
e) you need to present your answer legibly and clearly
f) you must achieve the above in 30 minutes
SIMPLES!
Apart from its not and that's why you need much practice.

I think where it often goes wrong is at the very beginning at {a}.
However many people also don't know enough about the subject itself {b} I don't mean chunks of text that you can recall serially in "parrot fashion"; I mean the sort of familiarity where you can "ranom access" a fact out of here, jump somewhere different and select a fact from somewhere else and then make the conection between them.
That's where the "signalling" stops and the "exam" kicks in; recent students tend to have the advantage from here-on in as they are still "exam passing machines", whereas the initial elements are easier for those who have a few more years relevant experience to their credit.

Some suggestions:
1. Read the questions, answers and comments that are available on this website for ANY MODULE featuring written answers, because there are very many common elements. This will include all sorts of variety of presentation so you can evaluate their advantages / disadvantages in various scenarios- its partly some questions lend themselves to different approaches, but also partly some approaches suit different people better.
For example look at feedback on four attempts at the same module 1 question ; this should give you some ideas re how an examiner perceives.

2.Have a look at the range of answers I posted for the Signet event earlier in the year; in particular:
a) there are some for the student to put themselves in the place of the examiner and judge how they would mark against the question set- some are considerably better than others deliberately.
b) there is one which is not actually an answer but basically a host of bullets. The idea is that this is a bit like a listing of links as per a Google search on a subject- it brings forth a long list, some are valuable stuff, some may be on the correct topic but quality of content is laking being of questionable accuracy, then some are nearly or completely irrelevant. This allows you to have a go at {c} and {d} without being too hampered by being weak for {b}.

These were an idea that I felt may help- what I don't know is whether it actually does, but it'd be good for someone to try and see if it does for them.

I made a presntation re answering written questions which I don't think I have yet posted here; I'll find and see what size it is and perhaps post it later if reasonable.