Thanks for the feedback.
Also for the reminder that the papers have not yet been made available on the IRSE website; I did prompt ast year but will give a further nudge to get them out in time for the Exam Review.
The fact that you did not use the Study Guides a lot itself tells us something. Since they are now given to each student when registering for the exam, it suggests that you considered perhaps-
a) unnecessary for someone in your situation, or
b) unattractive to start to use, or
c) not useful having attempted to use.
Since you were not able to attend a Study Group that then rasies the question what you did use. I think few people work through much of the Reading List (and I can hardly say i blame them)- if you restricted yourself to Yellow Book then that might explain your mod 1 result; you had quite possibly covered that element well (and therefore felt you had done ok) but had not learnt enough re how the somewhat abstract theory in this is applied in the railway environment.
Do think experience is an important element; I guess that your years in maintenance will have helped more for mod 5 than mod 1. I agree that operational experience is useful for certain mod 1 questions, so can understand your surprise but I think that you may be right that lack of experience in safety engineering would be significant. A Yellow Book course is certainly useful but it is one thing to attend a course and another to have the familiarity that comes from putting into practice. Certainly I would recommend more practising of answering exam questions....
I take your point re the cost of travelling; this is certainly a worsening from the old British Rail days when staff had a certain amount of free travel and could generally get additional tickets for attendance at useful development events etc.
See if you can get your management to grant you the time and fund the journey to the YM half day seminar and exam review, whilst they are still full of seasonal goodwill!
Also for the reminder that the papers have not yet been made available on the IRSE website; I did prompt ast year but will give a further nudge to get them out in time for the Exam Review.
The fact that you did not use the Study Guides a lot itself tells us something. Since they are now given to each student when registering for the exam, it suggests that you considered perhaps-
a) unnecessary for someone in your situation, or
b) unattractive to start to use, or
c) not useful having attempted to use.
Since you were not able to attend a Study Group that then rasies the question what you did use. I think few people work through much of the Reading List (and I can hardly say i blame them)- if you restricted yourself to Yellow Book then that might explain your mod 1 result; you had quite possibly covered that element well (and therefore felt you had done ok) but had not learnt enough re how the somewhat abstract theory in this is applied in the railway environment.
Do think experience is an important element; I guess that your years in maintenance will have helped more for mod 5 than mod 1. I agree that operational experience is useful for certain mod 1 questions, so can understand your surprise but I think that you may be right that lack of experience in safety engineering would be significant. A Yellow Book course is certainly useful but it is one thing to attend a course and another to have the familiarity that comes from putting into practice. Certainly I would recommend more practising of answering exam questions....
I take your point re the cost of travelling; this is certainly a worsening from the old British Rail days when staff had a certain amount of free travel and could generally get additional tickets for attendance at useful development events etc.
See if you can get your management to grant you the time and fund the journey to the YM half day seminar and exam review, whilst they are still full of seasonal goodwill!
(30-12-2011, 08:44 PM)pieman31 Wrote: A mixed bag for me, which left me rather confused :-S
Mod 1 - Fail
Mod 5 - Pass
My confusion lies in that I felt one module was alarmingly more difficult than the other! And not in the order my results suggest either. Applying a pessimistic view, I should count myself lucky not to have two fails! But hey ho......
Feedback for PJW
a) prior to taking the exam how did you think you'd do?
Having set myself a robust study plan, then totally not sticking to it and the fact that I registered for the exams very late I felt that I might be in trouble....
b) having just written the exam paper, how did you then feel you had done?
I was happy with Mod 1, having recently spent a few years in an Operations role I felt confident that I had tackled my chosen questions reasonably well....
Mod 5, on the other hand I was more unsure of.
c) in retrospect can you understand the result or did it come as a shock?
I can't understand the result for Mod 1 and it did shock me a little. Perhaps more will come to light after the exam review and when the paper is released. However, the Mod 5 result was a nice suprise in contrast.
d) do you have any idea of any area of weakness?
Yes and no. Yes, I feel I need more experience in safety engineering full stop. No, I don't know what areas to concentrate on to pass Mod 1.....
e) is there anything about the exam itself that you feel is unfair / unduly difficult?
No I felt the exam was well run. I had no suprises from the information given in the examination guide.
f) how could the Study Packs be improved to help ?
I'm not sure of the suitability of the study packs having not used them extensively.
g) was any form of training available / did you participated in any Study Group?
I did a yellow book course through NR. I didn't to any study groups, not that its any excuse, I find getting out of South Wales to attend such groups a logistical nightmare (and expensive too!)
h) how you tried to prepare for the exam- was it primarily by reading sources, using this Forum to look at attempted answers, practising own own attempts, getting work reviewed by more senior / experienced colleagues?
To be brutally honest, I was under-prepared for this exam. A mistke I dont plan on making twice! Although in my opinion, attempting past papers and having the work reviewed and critiqued by experienced peers seems the logical way forward.
PJW