IRSE Exam Forum

So you all worked hard, sweated through the papers yesterday and have had an evening to think about all those things that went bad and good. Tell us how you think things went and share any queries or thoughts you have on what was in the papers.

Peter

(02-10-2016, 03:30 PM)Peter Wrote: So you all worked hard, sweated through the papers yesterday and have had an evening to think about all those things that went bad and good. Tell us how you think things went and share any queries or thoughts you have on what was in the papers.

Peter

There was a change of wording this year in the instructions about putting question parts (a, b, etc) on the sheet or in the margins. I don't recall seeing that in the IRSE instructions documents before the exam - did I miss something?
It's not critical but I know there is nothing in the Mod3 study guide that came out this year.

(03-10-2016, 05:42 AM)dorothy.pipet Wrote:

(02-10-2016, 03:30 PM)Peter Wrote: So you all worked hard, sweated through the papers yesterday and have had an evening to think about all those things that went bad and good. Tell us how you think things went and share any queries or thoughts you have on what was in the papers.

Peter

There was a change of wording this year in the instructions about putting question parts (a, b, etc) on the sheet or in the margins. I don't recall seeing that in the IRSE instructions documents before the exam - did I miss something?
It's not critical but I know there is nothing in the Mod3 study guide that came out this year.

I had not heard of it before, but on the invigilator notes there was a line which asked us to bring it to the attention of candidates. Maybe other centres did not notice the note to remind people!

(03-10-2016, 02:32 PM)Peter Wrote:

(03-10-2016, 05:42 AM)dorothy.pipet Wrote:

(02-10-2016, 03:30 PM)Peter Wrote: So you all worked hard, sweated through the papers yesterday and have had an evening to think about all those things that went bad and good. Tell us how you think things went and share any queries or thoughts you have on what was in the papers.

Peter

There was a change of wording this year in the instructions about putting question parts (a, b, etc) on the sheet or in the margins. I don't recall seeing that in the IRSE instructions documents before the exam - did I miss something?
It's not critical but I know there is nothing in the Mod3 study guide that came out this year.

I had not heard of it before, but on the invigilator notes there was a line which asked us to bring it to the attention of candidates. Maybe other centres did not notice the note to remind people!

I think that the prohibition of writing anything in the margin is technically still extant....

Having heard from my group who mainly did Module2 (mainly Swindon but also London, Birmingham, Glasgow) I don't think the exam had any great shock surprise and was regarded as reasonable apart from everyone saying that they had insufficient time to do all that the thought they ought to.

Certainly the fact that it was the freight braking distance which was the factor that dictated the signal spacing made several people go back to double check their calculations; however anyone who had done the 2015 layout would know that this was the case for the branch line on that layout.  Similarly the stopping headway calculation, very much followed the pattern of last year. 

I think it helped that our group actually did 2015 as their last mock paper so was fresh in the mind.  Also we had gone through at length the depot interface on the 1997 layout which is about as tricky as it gets (not quite as bad as Brighton Lover's Walk but not dissimilar) and therefore the need for slots etc. at the interface should not have caused them any great problem.  From my perspective this is all good, because if any of them fail then they can't claim they were ill-prepared for what they were asked to do and therefore can assume that any failure will be the result of their inadequate speed fro enough practice / poor time management on the day ......

The solitary attempts which I know of at mod 5 and mod 7 both seem reasonably comfortable with their efforts and again it seems that the papers were very much within  the normal range of what can be expected.