Despite its global reach, the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (CIPS) is primarily a UK professional body with the majority of its operations and its headquarters based in the UK. Although CIPS professional qualifications are studied in more 100 countries around the world, this does mean that the exams are written and assessed in the English language.
Before embarking on a programme of study for your CIPS professional qualifications, if English is not your first language, then you may wish to undertake a self-assessment on your understanding and use of the English language in a business context.
Why is this important?
We have many CIPS students studying around the world, from Latin America to Central Asia, through to South East Asia and various African nations. Many of our CIPS learners are incredibly well-qualified and highly capable. Some are in middle or senior procurement management positions, having previously studied a degree level, or even Masters degree level.
Unfortunately this is only partially helpful when it comes to studying for your CIPS exams.
There are two types of CIPS exam. The “Objective Response” exams are multiple-choice exams. As an exam candidate, you need to read the stem question carefully and then select simply select the correct answer(s) from a list options for each of your 60 questions. This type of assessment requirements comprehension of written English (i.e. the ability to read, interpret and understand).
The other type of CIPS exam is the “Constructed Response” exam, requiring exam candidates to prepare written answers in the form of essays. This involves additional language skills. As well as understanding written English (for the case study and question) you also need to express your answer in written English.
Essay-writing is a practised skill, and exam essay writing is a technique that needs careful mastery. At Cordie, we provide our learners with separate additional exam technique eLearning. We have seen some learners improve their exam results by 20-30% simply by improving the way they prepare and write their essay answers.
Imagine that? The pass-mark is only 50% and so improving your results by 20-30% could easily lift you from a ‘fail’ grade to a ‘merit’ grade, almost instantly!
So what?
So, if English is not your first language, we strongly recommend you to consider how you will address this additional requirement in the exams. For one of our corporate clients, we developed an initial English assessment to check whether their people had sufficient understanding and ability to express themselves in business English (and particularly in the procurement context).
If you are concerned in anyway about your level of English understanding or English expression prior to taking a CIPS exam then do please contact our office and we are only happy to offer advice or guidance as to how this can be improved and so increase your chances of success in your CIPS exams.
Good luck and we wish you well!