It’s such a great word. Not is it only difficult to pronounce and spell, but it also nicely sums up its true meaning: to place oneself into a position of confusion, disorientation and mystification. Unfortunately, many of us feel this during exams, but it needn’t be this way.
Recently, Cordie has expressed our concerns to the senior management of CIPS about the increasing complexity of the wording of their exam questions - particularly at the Level 4 Diploma level. Learner feedback has suggested (amongst other things)…
Exam questions are now significantly longer than two years’ ago
Question stems now regularly contain three or even four sentences before the actual question
Some Level 5 questions are being repeated (copied and pasted) to Level 4
Sentence structures are unnecessarily long and complex
There is the occasional use of negative phrasing and double negatives.
An exam about the knowledge and understanding of procurement should not be masked by unnecessarily complex wording. The danger is that the exam starts assessing a candidate’s ability to understand English, rather than procurement. It’s a procurement exam, not an English comprehension exam!
We will update this page as and when we get a more in-depth response from CIPS who has expressed its disappointment at receiving our feedback, but promised to “look into the matter”. Watch this space for further updates…!
In the meantime, what can you do about this feeling of confusion during an exam…? Taking exams can be a stressful experience, but help is at hand. First - as easy as it may sound - try not to worry or become too anxious. We appreciate this is easy to say, but finding techniques for controlling your anxiety and exam nerves is a key ‘first step’ to answering difficult questions effectively.
In a CIPS exam, you have a ‘flagging’ tool on the assessment screen. It works a bit like the flag option you get in an email inbox. This allows you to highlight a question that gives an immediate challenge to you, so that you can move on and come back to it later.
This will help avoid your brain getting too “locked-in” to the wording of one question and therefore avoid over-processing. It allows your subconscious to consider the question, while also giving relief to your conscious mind as you move on to another question.
Sometimes (and this is particularly the case with CIPS exam questions) the answer to a previous question can be found embedded into the text of a later question - or at least clues to the answer for a previous question.
If you suffer from anxiety or believe you might become particularly anxious during an exam, then please talk to us directly. Our exam manager is a fully qualified mental health at work first aider and would be happy to talk through techniques that could be helpful for you. In addition, we also operate a modern and up-to-date Reasonable Adjustments Policy which may apply in particular circumstances, particularly if you have medical evidence of anxiety or other related mental health related issues.
Certainly the exam questions should not be deliberately written to confuse, disorient or even “discombobulate” a candidate during an exam, and we are committed to working on your behalf to ensure you get as fair an assessment as possible. Please talk to us further if there is anything we can help and support with.