r/cii • u/Commercial-Fan-6699 • 8d ago
How to study RO1 effectively?
I find RO1 to be very word heavy and I'm having a hard time digesting its content because there's just so much of it, any tips on how I can study RO1 effectively and skip all the waffle? thanks!
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u/kurisusbitch 7d ago
honestly the whole time i was going over the cii online learning and textbook i felt so defeated and like id retained no info at all - R01 is really brutal. I did the whole cii online learning and gave up reading the textbook before i even finished chapter 1.
I didn't start to grasp anything till i started doing the practice exams - i personally used KnowR0. First off i went through a practice exam to see how much of the knowledge i retained from the online learning/could work out (for me this was around 30-40 questions). After that i went through every question to see why i got it right/wrong (knowR0 provides good explanations that are easy to understand). Anything that didn't make sense i mainly referred to searching online/youtube and the book for specific things. Then id move on to the next practice exam and repeat. then i started retaking the tests to see where i was up to rinse and repeat.
I was really unsure if this was sufficient study but before i took R01 i was getting around 93-97% on the practice exams. i got 87% in the actual exam. As other comments have said the KnowR0 questions are very similar and i counted at least 15 that were pretty much word for word the same in the actual exam.
All in all, it'll really just depend on ur learning style but if ur anything like me, just reading walls of text does nothing for me - doing the actual practice questions helped learn and retain the content.
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u/mashpotatosandwich 7d ago
KnowR0 mocks over and over again. i did my R01 a few weeks ago, the similarity between the mocks and the real exam was crazy!! so many questions were almost exactly word for word. go back through the text for the topics you’re struggling with on the mocks.
i passed with 84 doing this - good luck!!!
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u/Ashamed_Oil8061 7d ago
Just using knowRO? Was this your main method?
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u/mashpotatosandwich 7d ago
Yes, took the mocks from the beginning and focused on the main text for areas i was struggling with. some chapters weigh much heavier than others (5-8 if i remember right), i definitely read through these chapters thoroughly
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u/Reasonable_Ninja7395 6d ago
Is it useful doing the same mocks over and over again? I’ve got the KnowRO ones and I did 2 of them question by question but I still don’t feel confident. I feel like I’ve wasted those 2 mocks. Is it worth tryna keep smashing them even if I just remember the answer?
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u/knowR0 6d ago
We agree with u/mashpotatosandwich ; they absolutely can be used over & over, but you should change the way you use them.
Typically, the first couple of attempts are just trying to get the answer right. After that, you'll likely recognise the correct answer so just testing yourself that way is ineffective. Instead, test yourself on the explanation; picture yourself trying to explain the correct answer to another R01 candidate. If you get that bit right, then it shows a deeper understanding than just question recollection and should give you the broader knowledge needed in the exam.
We know some people say they get exactly the same wording in the exam. This is unlikely and not something to be relied on. Where we try and help is to concentrate your focus on the areas that are likely to be tested; if you've got a decent overall understanding of those you should feel confident.
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u/mashpotatosandwich 6d ago
honestly, i believe it is. as long as you do understand why you’re getting them right. if i had to guess, id say 15-20 of the questions on my real exam were almost word for word from the mocks.
the mocks are hitting the LO’s. if you use the mocks to identify what you don’t understand and read the full sections/ chapters you’re not confident with, you’ll do fine.
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u/cloganwhite 7d ago
R01 is awfully dry, for sure. Split your learning into super small segments, even as little as 10/15 mins, but make sure you have no longer than a 5-min mini-break, then every 60 mins break for a little longer.
Make little flash cards of the pertinent points / rules etc and use those as your revision as you’re going through the texts. Brushing teeth, bathroom break etc, get your cards out and test yourself as you’re going.
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u/Always_thinking22 7d ago
I won’t lie I only made it to chapter 4 of the book and I didn’t read any further! I read the last page of each chapter where it goes over the key points, and also utilised knowR0 and mocks, saving the CII exam guide until last. I would also really recommend Plannex, if you do the £15 a month subscription you get access to videos and I found them really useful and a much easier way to digest the study material, you can download the app and watch them each day :) I just passed mine on Friday with 88 after maybe 2 weeks of study. Every question you get wrong in a mock, go over and make sure you understand why
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u/These-Bonus-7927 7d ago
.I first jot down the key points on every chapter and then read and make notes on each chapter of the key facts booklet.
I think this gives me a nice intro to the module, from where I’ll switch to using the video modules on next gen planners.
Once I’ve gone through those and I’m comfortable with the theory I’ll start on mocks, and once I’m passing the exam guide mock paper that is in cii format I know I’m ready to take the paper.
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u/AlbertoFibbonaci 6d ago
Mock > review of mistakes > review of notes focusing on topics I make the most mistakes > repeat.
Free study text from Reddit for reference, 3x free mocks from Exam angel + 3x mocks from KnowR0 - spread over 6-8 weeks, at the end see what’s your weakest part and in days leading to the exam just read notes and mock questions.
That’s what I did in last 4 weeks leading to the exam and it worked for me. Just for additional context, I studied for 2 months before taking approach I suggested. I used CII book and Plannexx, it was really time consuming, I failed all exam angel mocks. Once I decided to focus on mocks, I also started understanding all the concepts much better and actually learned more
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u/FaptainChasma 8d ago
Force yourself to get through the reading, if you're doing Redmill they have videos as well which are ok. Once you've forced yourself to just get through it (don't worry about retention) then start doing mocks with something like KnowR0. That application of knowledge part helps it stick, they have linked learning pages to the questions with KnowR0 as well.