(05-10-2015, 02:51 PM)gmitchell Wrote: Did the questions surprise you?
Not particularly, although the Level Crossing in Mod 2 was a bit of a nasty surprise, and I was a little surprised there wasn't an aspect sequence question in Mod 3.
How tough did you think it was?
I was fairly happy with mod 3 and the range of questions to choose from. My only issue is that I quickly ran out of time on module 2 (maybe partially a little bit of poor management), and I've since realised how much I may well have left out.
Yes, once we'd found the building!! The only down side was that there was a big queue for lunch in the cafe which left just enough time to get there, eat and get back in time for the session after lunch.
Definitely!!
Glenn
A level crossing is one of those things that does come up occasionally in mod 2; you probably need to have looked at about 10 years of past paper layouts to be relatively confident that you will have encountered before things that might come up. After all, the main question paper for mod 2 is very similar from year to year (the surprise last year was the braking rate changed from the traditional value and a new twist on the "stopping" headway calculation) and so there does need to be some unexpected variation in the layout itself. I am still waiting for the day when at one edge of the layout there is a fringe signalbox to which your solution must interface; similarly I have never seen a swing bridge, or a junction like Gunnersbury where mainline trains go one way but metro trains on the other diverging route after a length of track that both share, so perhaps be thankful that you just got a level crossing.
I am a bit more surprised if there wasn't any question on the topic of aspect sequence in mod3, although it would not have surprised me for there to have been a more common type of written question that did not have a layout or ask for a chart to be produced; there have been some hints from the examiners over the last couple of years that it might go that way. However they have made clear that there is no guaranteed question, so if it was actually entirely absent then students can't claim they weren't warned.
Glad you felt that you still had a decent number of questions to choose from.
As for time management, yes this IS a large part of the exam; one can argue whether or not it should be, but it certainly has been for as long as I can remember.
PJW