(26-02-2009, 07:39 PM)merlin89 Wrote: Hi all,
Finally got my associate membership through and I'm ready to start my studies. The reading list does it come after you have paid for the exam registration or as it says on the IRSE website at the end of March? The reason I ask is that we've got the majority of IRSE books at work eg those by OS Nock and if possible I'd like some direction towards those topics required in studying for the exam. My aim is to make some detailed notes on the way to aid study and pass what Ive learned onto colleagues and through this site would appreciate your thoughts. Many thanks, Ian.
I understand from Christine White that she has just got through the circa 150 membership applications so yes if you've been waiting then you should have received confirmation or can expect to do imminently; otherwise suggest chasing up. Think that she is now pressing on with production of the Study DVD and therefore it'd be a month or two before that is out; of course the more peole register for the exam the greater the priority will be on that task.
I have just checked:
http://www.irse.org/Documents/CW/Reading...7Jan09.pdf
and indeed seems as if it has been updated for 2009 (though to be honest I suspect very little different to last year). FREE to download NOW.
For those with my module 2 Study Pack you'll find that there is a list (Appendix Y) of references that I (rather than the IRSE exam committee) think are appropriate to that module. Instead of just having a list, it is in fact a short description of what relevance it has (so you can get some clue before actually going to the effort / cost of acquiring whether likely to be useful for you); also I have rated ***, **, * depending whether I think it is basic background reading, particularly useful to studying for the exam, or of advanced / oblique reference that might be considered "icing on the cake" for those aiming to do particularly well- but only after being secure in the more directly essential stuff.
Personally I find the official Reading List can be quite daunting in its volume and can be demoralising to search out something but then fail to really understand why it was said to be relevant- it tends to deter looking out others that actually may be found rather more help. What is good about it is the matrix structure so the relevance to each module is shown for each reference- it's just that I'd prefer a graded presentation instead of having a tick so that you could tell that for example it is considered very relevant to mod 7, relevant to mod 1 and of some relevance to mod 2 but only passing reference to mod 3 rather than just an equal applicable to each. I do feel that there is an over-emphasis on "worthy" papers rather than those that actually impart knowledge more directly useful for the actual examination questions- in general I feel that the items on the Reading List assume a higher level of base knowledge than many initially have- you can take this either a criticism of the list or the people aiming for the exam depending on your viewpoint!
Do recognise though that the idea of doing all the breadth of reading is to "get yourself up to speed" so that you fully comprehend the current state of the industry, how we got here and where we might be going in the future. It doesn't constitute "set books for coursework needed to pass the examination papers".
I'd certainly recommend reading all the London technical papers (printed in IRSE News most months) over the last couple of years- tend to be quite short, quite focussed and particularly likely to come up in the exams. Recent examples would be the "Victoria Line overlay signalling" and the "Misuse of SIL"; I also think that Clive Kessel's "lessons learnt from Manchester South and Portsmouth" articles would prove fertile ground for a question.
I think you'd be doing a public service if you annotated the Reading List for those which you do seek out re how applicable you felt the reference actually was to someone in your position-
was it a waste of time?,
was it too deep for initial reading and should have been left to later?, was it just what you had been looking for?
was it OK but rather too out of date fro 2009? or whatever.
You're surely not get through the lot, but the only way to eat an elephant is a spoonful at a time. Indeed we could try to have people review various items of reading material just as websites have consumer comment ratings of products on sale.......
PJW
