CT1 Exam april 2007

I thought the CT1 exam was quite easy. The only question i had problems with was the one with the DPP. How did eveyone else find the exam? Given that no one else has posted anything about this exam can i assume that everyone else also found this easy?

Also i was wondering how these exams are marked. I was told by someone that there is no fixed passing mark. Generally, if everyone finds the test easy and does well then the mark required to pass will be higher. Aparantly the marks are scaled so that only around 50% of the candidates who sat the test pass it.

I was wondering if this is true?

 

Given that the number of people passing this exam is usually over 50% I doubt that is true....

If you think you passed, from experience, you probably did! I didn't sit it this sitting but you only fail if you didn't go through the notes or enough past questions.

 

This is what i was saying the pass % is around 50%. You never see a pass % like 80% of those who sit the exam pass. This is because the marks are scaled. So just say the average mark for everyone who sat the paper is 75 out of hundred and say 100 % of the people got this then they can not pass everyone.

They will then try and find a mark so that only just over 50% of those who sat the test pass it. This mark could be something like 87 out of 100 for example.

They do this so that the % of people passing is consistent with previous years.

The same principle also applies if the test is very difficult and everyone gets a low mark. Then the pass mark will be reduced so that around 50% of those who sit the test will pass. For example if the test was very difficult then a mark of 45 out of 100 may be good enough to pass.

So i was just wondering how many people found CT1 test easy.

 

I dont agree with the 50% they try to pass. Its more like 25% to 35%!!!!!!

 

Very easy

I am one of those who found the exam easy, especially when compared with the mock exam... But also I am aware that I didn't pass, regardless of pass marks. A real pity, but I have only myself to blame.

M

 

I thought the exam was quite fair. Marco, how come you thought it was easy but don't believe you passed?

 

Well kuenlong I can only speak for myself and experience thought me that what for somebody is easy can be a nightmare for somebody else.

The reason why I say that this exam was easy is that in my opinion all the questions were straightforward, you may say standard if you want. But having said that, I wasn't able to complete all the answers and I also made a couple of silly mistakes, which I am aware of because I tried and failed to correct.

My excuse is that I prepared CT1 in less than five weeks. I didn't go through all the past exams and for that matter I didn't even do all the Q&A bank + X series questions. But I attempted seriously the mock exam and I think the breadth and depth of the material covered in there are far greater than in the April exam.

 

The usual assumption to make is that everyone else found the paper hard, hence no discussion.

 

I disagree that the pass marks are adjusted to get consistent proportions of people passing each year. I think the pass marks are adjusted to reflect the difficulty of the paper.

You can see from last sessions results that 54% of people sitting CT1 passed (in the institute, 55% in the faculty). If you want to compare proportions over different sessions then contact the profession and request pass lists, or at least the numbers, for previous sessions. I'm sure they'll have them available.

However, I'd imagine that if lots of people found the paper easy/scored well, then the pass mark would be scaled upwards to reflect this to some extent.

At the end of the day, all you can do is await the results...

Good luck!

 

It does look as though it's easier to pass in September than in April. Maybe more people are retakers in September, so have had longer to review the material.

 

Fifty kudos points to the first person to post the calculation of whether the difference in mean pass rates for april vs. september exams is statistically significant. Feel free to include a graph of the two distributions too.

 

It's hard to tell if retakers would increase the pass rate or decrease it. While they have more revision time they are also on average weaker students.

 

Had a go at this via ASET (under exam conditions) and got approx. 82/100 . Give or take a few marks.

I thought it was relatively fair; with the odd "silly" question thrown in to annoy candidates.

I find some of the 2000 series (102) papers quite challenging; with some seriously strange questions!