Week 18: Revision Week 3

That must have been another intense week for you, unless you are super man/woman. Are you taking us up on the challenge of replicating the exam conditions while doing the mock exams every Saturday? Also are you keeping up with the Ethics examples, LOS and end of chapter questions? Please remember to record your results in your week 17 progress report.

The week to come:

Let’s continue where we left off last week. This week is going to be slightly less intense we are covering the 248 end of chapter questions and 108 LOS in readings 25-36. As we discussed the previous weeks if you have stored your revision question lists, you may be able to reduce the number of end of chapter questions that you need to go through to e.g. 200, 150 or maybe even less. It should be easy to see why that would make your life easier now.

Once you have answered the end of chapter questions make sure that you pay attention to the explanations in the curriculum books. This is the most important aspect of the revision process, especially for those questions that you struggled with. If you are pressed for time (like most candidates) skip the explanations for the questions that you got right, but read the explanations for the questions that you got wrong twice and slowly for maximum comprehension. Studying these explanations in detail makes for the most efficient use of your time at this stage, as the process will isolate many of the insights that you are still struggling with and that could provide a marginal improvement to your exam score. Once you have revised the end of chapter questions, make a note in your question log of the questions that you are still struggling with. Work your way through this reduced list of tricky questions. If there are any challenging questions left after the second iteration rinse and repeat until you are able to answer every single one correctly.

Revising your answers to the LOS is slightly less straightforward than for the end of chapter questions, as the curriculum books do not provide guideline answers, but the mere process of answering the LOS should help pinpoint areas of weakness at this stage. Luckily you will have created flashcards for all of the LOS and what’s more, you will have made notes in your question log singling out the LOS that you personally are finding difficult. This list is going to save you hours and hours and enable you to focus on your weaknesses. Once you have flicked through the difficult flashcards referenced in the question log, list the LOS that you are still completely clueless about (hopefully that is not going to be many at this stage), and if you have got the time dip back in and read small passages targeted to the individual LOS (you should have the relevant page numbers written on the flip side of your flash cards), sometimes the answers can be found in the chapter summaries as well.

Remember the examples in reading 2? This week we are continuing to cover 5 examples a day (or 10 if you are aiming to get through them twice). As discussed previously, it is likely that a large proportion of the estimated 36 ethics questions on the exam will be based on examples similar to the ones described in reading 2, so a solid understanding of these provides one of the most favorable trade-offs between effort and likely impact on the exam outcome.

Exam day replication:

Once again spend your Saturday working through 2 uninterrupted mock exam sessions. Find a quiet area with a desk and a chair (maybe in a public library or somewhere else where you cannot be disturbed), switch off your mobile phone and bring only the mock exam, some paper, pencils, an eraser and your calculator. The morning session should run uninterrupted from 9 to 12, then take 2 hours break before sitting down for the afternoon session between 14 and 17. When done mark your score and redo the questions that you answered incorrectly until you can answer every question on the test accurately. If you are struggling for time you can chose to do just the morning or just the afternoon paper, but make sure the setup is as authentic as possible. Please remember to record your results in your week 18 progress report.

Week 19 is our fourth out of six weeks of revision before the test.

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