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[split] 2007 module 1 attempts
#1
PJW
I have attempted Module 2007 Question 2. Am I in the right direction?

ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz..........


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.doc   2007 question 2 Module1.doc (Size: 31 KB / Downloads: 209)
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#2
Railway Sleeper Wrote:PJW
I have attempted Module 2007 Question 2. Am I in the right dierection?

ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz..........

Yes I think on the correct lines.
You could have made the division between the three parts of the answer more obvious; in particular the first two seemed quite inter-twined and you run the risk of the examiner not finding things that they are looking for and thus not getting all the marks you might.

part a)
Personally I feel a little too much emphasis on writing reports / safety case etc to prove risk managed to be ALARP and too little re the actual scoping of the work, determining where / when / how to do it, briefing staff, providing adequate facilities, time and tools for the job, adequate supervision and monitoring by line management, learning from incidents & near misses from other parts of organisation etc

I think you certainly have explicitly considered both SYSTEM safety and PERSONNEL safety- you probably were but need to make this more apparent. For example nothing was said re "disconnections", any alternative means for keeping trains running during the work, re-testing afterwards before being handed back to operations. Always worth trying to work in "risk = likelihood x consequences" in any mod 1 question that mentions safety- possibly not that blatantly but by commenting which measures seek to reduce the likelihood of an error and those which seek to mitigate effects.

Similarly I think it would have been good to have more obviously gone through the life-cycle so that some cogniscence that the concept design can influence safety through the operational life and indeed when it comes to disposing of the life expired assets.


part b)
Remember competence = KATE= Knowledge, Attitude, Training, Experience.
Although you got much of the relevant stuff I think that ordering as:
"assess the requirements of the role,
recruit to fit profile,
give relevant training,
assess,
give appropriate tasks,
with mentor as necessary to grow skills and experience,
monitor performance,
further develop / refresh as required"
would make it more obvious. If you had put these as 8 bullet points but with a sentence or two with each to expand by giving a salient example, then I think you'd have got almost all those 8 marks quite easily; i.e. if you give 8 distinct and explained points, for which of these would examiner not give you a mark? However if the examiner has to hunt around in a less clear structure you may not get them all. I think I'd also give some examples of safety critical tasks perhaps in conjunction with the first bullet.

part c)
I think this is the part you answered best and that you'd have got at least 5 and probably 6 of the 7 marks. Perhaps you should have considered slightly more whether the diagrams were ambiguous or the design not as "foolproof" as it might have been, whether some improved tool or process would have reduced the chance of the error being made etc; also one should ask whether there was some violation of procedure that resulted in the person's work not being checked in the first place or whether there was a second person who failed to check adequately and thus let the error made become commissioned.

Overall I believe this was a good answer; I guess a Credit.
If you look at previous exam reviews, there are frequent comments that examiners do not welcome the names / numbers of standards being quoted at them per se; you'd have done well to have given a typical example of something from each.

Bullet points are good to list separate but related ideas; however I think after a sentence or two of more general explanation to give the overview which the bullets exemplify. The impression that I got for the first part of the answer was that each bullet point in itself was sound but seemed a little too isolated and random order rather than a logical progression of clearly argued points. So although there was good content the beginning did not feel like a good answer as not sure where it was leading...
PJW
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#3
The York study group decided to have a go at 2007 Q2, here is my offering, it is quite short, however I have tried to confine my attempt to the 30mins you are allowed in the exam (for obvious reasons!).

The question is:

How can a railway administration ensure that safety is properly managed whilst undertaking

signalling and telecommunications maintenance and renewal activities? How should this be

documented? [10 marks]



What procedures would be needed to ensure that only competent personnel undertake safety

critical tasks? [8 marks]



If the railway administration discovers some work undertaken by an individual is incorrect and

may be unsafe, what action should be taken to ensure that safety is maintained? [7 marks]


Attached Files
.pdf   IJP 2007 Q2.pdf (Size: 933.25 KB / Downloads: 77)
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#4
Hello,

I have read your answers several times. Firstly let me say this; short isn't always bad. If you are concise but precise, brevity is fine.

Let me ask you a couple of questions and maybe you can assess your own answers. I believe the question's answers are broader than the answers given seem to imply. The answers certainly are a good start.

1) How does a safety case ensure safety is managed? Do you not feel that the staff working to approved and accepted standards, processes and procedures plus employing competant staff (trained and relevant experience) who a trained and their performance mentored would be more apt?
2) Emphasises the need to discuss processes in part 1! There are softer issues too like having toolbox talks, a no-blame culture allowing people to stop work if they feel it is unsafe or are unable to carry out the task. Competancy matricies are good but a qualification is not the same as being competant.
3) I would think about taking equipment out of service too quickly. Maybe you would want to assess the risks, put together a plan of action, consider the bigger picture. You mention checking previous work and that may well be required as may retraining. Remember, competance isn't passing a test. Competance is the indvidual's ability to carry out a task (usally following training and a period of mentorship (i.e. task experience) plus the individual's acceptance they have the skills to carry the task out correctly.

Are you coming to Derby this weekend? If so, come have a word or take the feedback from here and have another go. Don't forget, a piece of paper doesn't make something safe.

Jerry
Le coureur
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#5
The York study group were set question 2 plus one other from the 2007 paper. Attached are my attempts at question 2 and question 6.
Any feedback would be appreciated to discuss at the next session.


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.pdf   2007 Module 1 Q2 & Q6.pdf (Size: 15.99 KB / Downloads: 83)
.pdf   Module 1 2007 Exam.pdf (Size: 75.23 KB / Downloads: 59)
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#6
As part of the York Study group we were set question 2 to attempt from the 2007 module 1 paper and any other question from previous paper i chose Q7 from the same paper.

I have answered them from a MTCE background and would appriciate any feedback good or bad.


Attached Files
.pdf   2007 Q2.pdf (Size: 228.65 KB / Downloads: 56)
.pdf   Q2 Answer.pdf (Size: 576.66 KB / Downloads: 66)
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#7
(27-05-2010, 08:26 AM)fnnnj001 Wrote: As part of the York Study group we were set question 2 to attempt from the 2007 module 1 paper.
I have answered them from a MTCE background and would appreciate any feedback good or bad.

In summary you looked at this question too narrowly by concentrating only really on staff competence and only really from a routine maintenance perspective. Perhaps that is understandable if you have not been on the railway long and that is your experience to date, but the IRSE Exam in general (and mod1 in particular) requires you to demonstrate a greater depth of knowledge.

You would have done well to have started your answer by saying that you were answering from an NR Maintenance perspective; it gives the examiner a clue f where you are coming from.

Even from a limited viewpoint I think that you could have done better on this question if you had thought more widely rather than really concentrating on one facet. The second part of the question was obviously all about "competence" so you want largely to "hold your fire" on that one to use your ammunition later- you are not going to get the same marks twice.

I think the first section was really expecting you to demonstrate an overall understanding of the Yellow Book (so if you are not already familiar then I suggest some detailed study of that is required as it is sure to come up in some form or the other within any mod 1 paper). However leaving that aside for now, what you surely know and could have explained are:
1. How a maintainer knows which pieces of equipment need to be maintained when.
2 Why different types of equipment have different service intervals and indeed certain tasks on an item are performed more frequently than others.
3. How the tasks to be performed are defined- so some description of the Signal Maintenance Specifications should have been included.
4. What records are kept of having undertaken the work; how does the supervisor ensure that the scheduled work has actually been undertaken and completed?
5. Where important values / checks are recorded- be it track Circuit Record Cards, cable test result sheets etc.
6. How any anomaly detected whilst undertaking maintenance is reported and the process that then ensures that any faults are subsequently cleared within the appropriate timescale.
6. The use of calibrated gauges, meters etc
7. An example to demonstrate might have been a good idea; the routine test of a cable that identified some seriously defective cores and necessitated the use of temporary jumpering to utilise spare cores- and how this site change is made evident to others who may next work at the location and what the longer term "fix" would be.

Competent maintainers are obviously one key element, but only one. You should at least have addressed the process and procedures which bound their work- to be safe requires the right thing to be done at the right time in the right way with the right equipment. Mod 1 is about the Management of Safety and you need to take a wide overview. The question did say Signalling AND Telecomms, Maintenance AND Renewal so even if the majority of your answer were based on Signalling Maintenance then you should have made some effort to highlight any differences of which you are aware for other elements.
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I think if I were marking your answer I'd really put your parts 1+2 together as addressing part 2; indeed what you wrote for the two combined was about the right length for 8 marks. From my experience one line of text is most unlikely to warrant more than 0.5 mark; you should aim in your 30 minutes to write something like 75 lines (2.5 lines a minute handwriting is easily possible when the answer is flowing freely).

I'd have preferred a clearer description of what "competence" is- the closest you got was that it was gathered from official training courses and on-the-job leaning (but you did mention mentorship in the last part).
A useful acronym to remember is KATE:
Knowledge
Attitude
Training
Experience
Think also about the Competency Assessment Criteria applicable for getting an IRSE licence, also the Underpinning Knowledge and need for evidence that you can perform consistently.

Your answer only considered the provision and retention of ATW by members of staff; it was reasonably good on this but that was only half an answer.
Something else you should have explained was Safety Critical tasks. Without a clear understanding of what makes any particular activity "Safety Critical" and also what specific competence has been assessed as being needed to undertake that task then there can hardly be a procedure to ensure only competent staff undertake it!

I felt on initial reading that you might be giving me more than I needed and going off topic a bit when you started giving details of NR's AITL system; actually it was relevant in that it is both a means of documenting and undertaking periodic testing to ensure that competencies once granted are maintained. If you had worded such that you first stated these high level objectives and then said that NR's current method of achieving is via AITL, then you'd avoid the risk that the examiner thinks you have wandered off onto something you know about but isn't directly answering the question set.
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The third part of the question was again answered well as far as it went; however it focussed too narrowly on that one individual and the one site.
What about other similar work that the individual had previously undertaken- could that be suspect as well?
Why did that person do something in a manner that is incorrect- is there a generic issue that may be affecting more people?
Is the Specification ambiguous or at least liable to misinterpretation? Was the training poor?
Was there confusion between two similar but subtly different pieces of equipment?
Was the right thing done at the wrong time?
Is it actually impracticable to do the task as specified within the constraints of the possession regime?
Are the correct tools provided?
Has a culture grown up locally that "the book says something but in reality it can't actually be done and therefore we work like this- everyone does it and we've never had a problem yet"?

=================================================================
So on the basis of what you wrote I'd judge "not yet competent"; there wasn't much wrong with what you wrote but you didn't demonstrate a grip of the breadth of the subject.

You need to build on and expand your existing area of knowledge which at the moment I suspect is too limited.
It would certainly be a good idea to attempt to get onto a Yellow Book training course.
You will gain experience by attempting such questions and learning from feedback.
I like your attitude that you are prepared to give it a go and share your efforts.
So persevere and you will get there!

See also the [url=http://www.irseexam.co.uk
/showthread.php?tid=408&pid=1580#pid1580] other answer to this same question [/url]

Also I have attached a couple of summaries I made some years ago relating to what were then current NR instructions. See if you can get access to the current relevant intructions and do likewise as you read them- distill them to their essence and you'll learn moere than just reading and will end up with a form of revision note to refresh your memory prior to the exam.


Attached Files
.doc   GIRT7002 Product Accept.doc (Size: 66 KB / Downloads: 45)
.doc   GKRT0101 etc.doc (Size: 56 KB / Downloads: 36)
PJW
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#8
(25-05-2010, 08:58 AM)jbrownhill Wrote: The York study group were set question 2.
Any feedback would be appreciated to discuss at the next session.

Part 1 carries 10 marks; it is a very broad topic so perhaps 20 one-liners are appropriate here. Alternatively 10 more substantial bullet points having a couple of sentences apiece would be what I'd be looking for.
The question asked for the whole overview re managing safety both for maintenance and renewals and indeed Signalling and Telecomms; your answer did nothing to encompass this range nor describe the context of your answer- it seems to be "project" rather than "maintenance".
Similarly I think that you should have explicitly considered "personal safety", "system safety" and indeed "environmental safety".

Looking at your bullets
1. Safety culture certainly a good point- though I would take issue that it "ensures" safety, it certainly contributes. There is enough here for 1 mark

2. You should have demonstrated better that you knew what CDM is all about; ok there was something here so at least I know that you don't think it means Cadbury's Dairy Milk chocolate in this context but not enough. It is all about assessing risks through the life cycle and ensuring that the risks are eliminated or at least minimised /mitigated against at the design stage and the management of any ongoing risk properly transferred at handover via things such as the Operations and Maintenance Manual etc. "Builders and maintainers need to be considered" is rather too vague as is "CDM regulations should be followed through". I think you'd get 0.5 mark but I'd feel a little mean.

3. There was some good stuff in this bullet but there are Safety Cases and Safety Cases and it wasn't completely clear of what you were thinking. For example each Train Operating Company has a Safety Case for its operations, a piece of novel equipment being introduced onto the railway has a Safety Case supporting its Trial Certificate and eventually its PADS certification and a resignalling project would have a Safety Case and I guess this is the most likely fit for what you have written.
I think I'd give a mark for the risk assessment / hazard log and another for the competence / auditing.

4&5. I'd lump these together and give 1 mark.

I make that 4.5/10- not quite a Pass. I'd look at it again to see if it seems fair. You did only write half a page; is that really 10 minutes work? Yes you named some documents almost in passing, but didn't feel I'd been given "the big picture". Might be prepared to run to 5, but it is grudging and I won't now give you benefit of the doubt later on in the question...

Suggest you study both the Orange Book and the Yellow Book to give you more ideas to add here.

Also get more of an understanding of CDM.

It might also be helpful for you to understand something of ROGS (and what NR does re the categorisation of work and the role of the Competent Independent Person).
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Section 2 was brief as well; 6 one-liners isn't going to get you 8 marks. Similar comments apply as for the other answer to this question so won't repeat here. At least you mentioned the assessment of the competencies required for the various tasks; it would have been good to have considered both the generic competence to fulfill various roles of the IRSE licencing system and any equipment specific competence for installing / testing / maintaining particular items.
Perhaps I'd give 4/8
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This part was reasonably answered, but again definitely too brief.
Again see the other answer to this question for some relevant comments; you covered more of the bases but not all.

I think your first bullet means undertaking a review post incident as to whether the task was within limits of the previously assessed competency and if it was not understanding the circumstances which led to unauthorised work being undertaken- you don't actually say that though.

Reinstatement of competency was not something directly asked for; worth including but as an extension to bullet 2.

I'd have liked to have seen a second sentence on at least most of your bullets giving a concrete example of the generic wording; as they stand they are somewhat light for awarding a mark apiece. I'd probably give 4/7.

=====================================================================
Overall then I'd probably rate it a borderline pass. To be honest, to get those marks from one page (although when written it'd no doubt look a bit longer) does seem unlikely; however in scope it did address the question and was economical in style so I am not uncomfortable with that assessment as there would surely be far worse papers submitted. However I am not an examiner and therefore I don't know quite how they mark and therefore have no true "calibration", so you're definitely far too close for comfort. Add a bit more in the way of detail though on what you have already written and it would be a sound pass I am sure.
PJW
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#9
Hi,

Please find attached our attempts at the Mod 1 2007 paper Questions 1 - 3. [Q1 and Q3 now filed separately PJW]

This was done under time pressure and therefore may be lacking in content!

Cheers,
Hitesh & Laura




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.doc   2007 Q2.doc (Size: 35 KB / Downloads: 34)
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#10
(18-08-2010, 06:15 AM)hiteshp Wrote: Hi,

Please find attached our attempts at the Mod 1 2007 paper Questions 1 - 3. [Q1 and Q3 now filed separately PJW]

This was done under time pressure and therefore may be lacking in content!

Cheers,
Hitesh & Laura

Yes your answers were pretty sketchy; I am assuming that you each made your separate attempts and that each represents 30 minutes, but perhaps you were only allowing yourselves 20 minutes as will be the case in 2010 (and either the questions will be shorter or a more outline style of answer is inevitable). You didn't say whether you actually wrote your answers long hand and then typed in for my convenience or whether you were against time but typing on a computer.......

I have added some comments to the text; occasionally I have added a little in track changes, but do refer also to the earlier attempts in this thread and the commentary thereon.

Laura was definitely the better for "competence", BUT had really spread this content over part a) as well as part b); therefore would not have scored much for part a) as the question was much wider than that.
Hitesh would at least have got some of the marks for part a) but wouldn't have scored that well since the answer didn't refer to the detailed pragmatic things that really help control the risk rather than just document an audit trail.

The best portion of the Hitesh answer was the last part but it could have done with more detail throughout although it did have the range. Conversely Laura started off fine and was explaining at an appropriate level of detail but then it seemed just to stop without covering all the ground; I am not sure whether she just run out of time to complete or alternatively didn't think there was more to say. The fact that it ended on an irrelevance suggests it might have been the latter- otherwise it was a poor use of the last few seconds which could have been more usefully spent in a quick bullet point list to pick up as many of the remaining marks within the last few seconds.

I haven't attempted to score the answers- both were definitely too brief for 30 minutes and therefore would have been struggling to pick up enough marks to ensure a pass. Hitesh did the better job of uniform if very thin coverage, whilst Laura was far more convincing on sections addressed but may have scored worse overall

Doing a question against time is rather different than discussing at leisure in a group. Practice may not make perfect, but it certainly helps improve.


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.doc   2007 Mod 1 Q2 Aus.doc (Size: 50.5 KB / Downloads: 40)
PJW
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