cert in arb exams at BCA

[APC]

anyone else doing cert in arb exams tomorrow at berkshire college of agric?

 

my mind has just gone to pot, everything has dribbled out!

[APC]

If anyone is interested, that wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, by miles. The first two papers, I think I did pretty good on, I was writing until the end and think I answered the questions fully. The last paper was not so good. I had a total mindblank on one of the questions, and wasn't sure of the meaning of one of the others so could have answered it totally wrong (it was a risk assessment question, something I do every day and have done for years), it was just how it was worded confused me. Maybe I did it right. But i was definitely stumped on the question on pruning, despite it being fundamental. Timings and sizes of cuts went out the window, how to prune anything ever just did not happen. I don't know why though. I just could not describe how to prune shrubs I know exactly what to revise though, if I had given time to revise that previously, rather than concentrate on the bits that intimidated me most (that didn't really come up ) then it would have taken about an hour or two to get it into my skull.

 

How long does ABC tend to take to mark papers? How soon can you do resits? I think I did okay on the first two papers but I think I need to get 70% or above on each paper to pass, is that right?

[ctenicera]

Hi APC,

 

I did paper 3 today (had done the other two previously). I didn't really understand the wording of the risk assessment question either (at least the second part of it) - at least it's not just me! I have to say though, that this isn't the first time I have had trouble with question wording - there was one like that in paper two last year when I did it, unfortunately, on that occasion I must have got the wrong end of the stick, as my mark wasn't that good - hopefully I've got it right this time.

 

When I did paper 1 last June, I got the results in August and paper 2 last December, I got the results in April, but they were delayed. So maybe expect a 2-3 month wait.

 

Also, I'm just looking at all my stuff from ABC and the pass mark is 50%, gradings as follows -

Pass 50-59%

Merit 60-74%

Distinction 75%+

But you have to pass each exam individually as well to get the qualification if I'm reading it correctly. I hope this info is correct as the date on the document that I have from ABC is 2008 - so may have changed since then.

 

Hope this helps and good luck!

[APC]

I'm glad it wasn't just me, the question was "for each stage of risk assessment you mentioned in a), describe an example of it". Or something like that. I just tried to put it in context of a forestry operation and talked through how I would go about carrying out the steps in part a). I was the only person doing the exam at BCA, the only person in the room apart from me was the invigilator lady. I was going to ask her what it was actually asking but figured she probably would less of a clue than me. Like I say, I have been party to 100's of risk assessments and have no problem completing them for pretty much any task or machine or event at work or whatever. I just didn't really get what they were asking for.

 

Good luck with yours too!

[ctenicera]

Yeah, that's the bit I had trouble with too - I'd better not tell my boss, as I write all the risk assessments at work (which is non-arb, but still involves machinery, manual handling etc)!!

 

As I said, I think it's just the daft way they word stuff sometimes, as it's happened before.

[APC]

Success! Just had an email from BCA to tell me I passed all three! I was so sure I would be retaking the third paper but got 65 for that one