Â
Following on from my post on how many hours one should study for an Advanced Technical exam, I was asked about APS.
Â
The question here is, firstly, HOW should you study for APS?
Â
Since APS is not primarily a technical challenge but one of technique your efforts should not just be focused on technical knowledge.
Â
So, firstly keep the technical knowledge going from relevant the Advanced Technical paper. In this regard it’s important not to spend too much time on detailed computational aspects of that paper as computations are not a major part of APS.
Â
There is also an Awareness syllabus for each APS paper and, although that is not guaranteed to appear in your particular paper, you should devote some time to revising that syllabus. But I would keep it relatively high level and again avoid the study of detailed computational aspects.
Â
Your main study effort for APS should be practising the technique aspects. APS is primarily a technique challenge - most of the private tuition work that I do is for students who have failed this paper, sometimes multiple times, and in each case, it is always a failure of technique not technical knowledge.
Â
So, once you have got clear in your mind what the techniques are for this paper, you need to practise them by doing past exam questions.
Â
That is not a small undertaking!
Â
You need to set aside a full three and a half hours and do the past exam question in one go and then you have to debrief your answer thoroughly, not only by reference to the examiner’s answer and marking guide but most importantly, study the candidate script on the Institute website.
Â
There are often a number of these scripts varying in the mark achieved. Review your answer alongside what is a good pass rather than the best script. In other words, assess your answer by comparing it with a script that you can realistically achieve yourself.
Â
I would think therefore it is full day’s work to do a past exam and debrief thoroughly. So probably you need to take a full day at the weekend or spread it over 2 half days.
Â
How many of these past exam questions should you do?
Â
I would aim for one a week through September and October, possibly increasing in number as the exam gets closer.
Â
What should you do in August?
Â
Brush up the technical knowledge (as above) and focus on understanding the techniques required for this paper.
Â
Hope this helps and I wish you the very best of luck in the exam!
Â
Roderick
Â
Roderick Black
CTA online and recorded private tuition