CT stratergy

I have come to the conclusion that i will never be able to complete the CT5 exam in the time given. is it 'better' to go for the short answers or the long ones? i.e. work from the last page to the first?
normally i would just work my way thru exams, front page to back, but it aint going to work for this one.

 

I did the old 105 exam which is mostly the new CT5.

I knew I'd never finish the exam in time.

I practised on developing speed in answering common numerical questions which helped a bit, but still not enough to finish.

My exam strategy on the day, was to start on the last question, and work forward for the first 2 hours. Then for the last hour to work from the front and go forwards, as there are easy marks to be had (but the questions are small - so not worth much).

Also, because I knew I couldn't finish it, I had the advantage of if I came across a particularly tricky question (say, exposed to risk ), I would write a couple of basic lines (may get 1 mark or 2), then just move on and find one I could answer.

I reckon i only attempted 65%-80% of my 105 exam, but I passed first time.
Go for quality and you shall suceed! (Probably!!!)

 

When I did 105, I completed the first couple questions to "warm up", and then atttempted the last few as these tend to have most of the marks allocated to them.

For 105 I noticed that the last few questions seemed to be "do-able" but the 8-10 mark stuff was quite tricky.

 

cheers, i think i will do that

 

My strategy was to go for the short answer questions first and then tackle the longer ones which I knew I could do. I left the tricky longer questions to last.

This is probably a slightly 'risky' strategy in that some would argue it's probably best to spend more time on the harder questions but I went for the strategy of accumulating as many marks as possible early on i.e. did what I knew best first.

For me, I think it was less a question of whether there was enough time/not and more a question of whether the topics that turned up in the exam were ones I could do well. As it turned out, I got lucky as I passed this subject first time!

 

Is it OK to answer questions in any order you like as long as you label the question number?

E.g. if in the answer booklet, I answer question 15 on page 1, question 14 on page 2, question 1 on page 3, question 2 on page 4... etc. Is that OK?

 

It's fine.

But one cautionary note, make sure you know which you have already done. May sound daft but in the heat of the moment, you don't want to do one twice!

As for getting thru' papers, it may be better to show some knowledge on all qns rather than miss one out entirely. I know someone who FAd having missed a qn. Just picking up the one or two marks on that tricky qn could make all the difference. It can be easy to 'prove yourself' on hard qns if you get on the borderline pile.

 

Do you mean that if I finish all other questions but just leave one 3 mark question blank due to not enough time, I could FA?

So would the criteria to pass be
* gain something like 65 marks AND
* attempt and gain one or two marks on all questions
?

 

No. The case I'm talking about was worth about 10 marks if I recall correctly.

If you get yourself on the clear pass pile without answering everything, I hope you'd be OK. But it's hard to know where that point is. Depends how well others have done.

Unfortunately I don't think there's an answer that works every time. You have to use your judgement on the day.

Good luck

 

That's how I approached it.

I doubt the typical student is expected to "finish". Nor should they need to. Attempting 80-90% of the paper isn't that impossible. So it is a matter of quality of your 80-90% attempted which will make the difference.