UK 18th Edition / BS7671 Amendment 2 Exam tips

[Hashim]

Hi

Could someone please help me with how to navigate the 18th edition amendment 2 (Brown) book in the most time efficient way for the exam. I have an exam in 6 days and currently I'm taking way too long to find the answers and I fear I will go over the 2 hour time limit and probably still fail .

• Maybe a table with which pages the exam questions will come from, will be of great help. (I know this isn't the best way to study the book but I just need a strategy for the exam)

Thanks

 

[JBW175]

The book is in sections (chapters). There’ll be so many questions from each section. They run in order, once you’ve completed all the questions in chapter one say, you’ll move to questions in chapter 2 and won’t have any more questions on the previous chapter.

Tab up your book and highlight useful information that you reference a lot. Zs tables for example.

Learn to use the index and contents page, they’re lifesavers.

Do some mock tests online, there’s plenty out there. Check out -----------

Don’t worry too much, it’s really not a hard exam.

Good luck with it.

 

[timhoward]

I was advised to go through the whole exam 3 times.
1 - look at every question and answer the ones I could do without even opening the book.
2 - then go through again and do the questions that I knew exactly where to find the answers
3 - the rest of the time spent on questions where I'd have to actually search, ideally using section content pages, and last resort the index at the back

That way as many points as possible have been collected in the shortest time, leaving the remainder of the time to scour the book.
It worked for me.

For revision, I'd focus on sections 3, 4 and 5.
Section 1 and 2 questions are obvious, near the start of the exam.
Testing & Inspection questions are fairly obvious - section 6, and special location questions are fairly obvious - section 7.

So 3,4 and 5 are the ones you have to know a bit better.
All the best.

 

[fivevoltlogic]

Remember you can use sticky notes to tab your pages. I currently have all the parts, appendicies and table of figures and table of tables tabbed. That and a couple of others like Disconnection and Zs(Part 4), abbreviations and symbols (Part 2).

I've been told you can have short annotations such as page numbers so I've put page numbers next to the chapters on the contents pages for each section. (edit: check with your exam centre what they're happy for you to do. C&G has their set of rules, but exam centres my differ)

 

[fivevoltlogic]

Sorry to keep posting in separate posts..

On the website 18th-edition.org.uk there's a section "What is covered by the 18th edition exam" which has a table of questions and the parts they cover and the percentage of the exam they account for. I'm not sure how up to date this is though.

I've been told that the exam is usually in order, so question 7, for example, will be later on in the book than question 4. There shouldn't be much or any need to be flip flopping back and forward too much.
Based on those percentages, much like @timhoward has said, concentrate on the high percentage areas. Parts 3, 4, 5 will have the most riding on them. Parts 4 and 5 are big.

Don't forget to use the index and definitions (esp abbreviations) if you're stuck.

 

[Hashim]

Hi

Could someone please help me with how to navigate the 18th edition amendment 2 (Brown) book in the most time efficient way for the exam. I have an exam in 6 days and currently I'm taking way too long to find the answers and I fear I will go over the 2 hour time limit and probably still fail .

• Maybe a table with which pages the exam questions will come from, will be of great help. (I know this isn't the best way to study the book but I just need a strategy for the exam)

Thanks

Thanks for that.

Is there any reason why in the mock exams the questions don't follow an order from what I have noticed so far. My first question in my mock was from Chapter 4 (Part 4) and then it goes into other chapters.

 

[fivevoltlogic]

That may be a better question for whoever provided the mock exam to you. I'm studying for the exam myself and only sharing the info that I've been given.

What was the question from Part 4?

 

[Hashim]

I was advised to go through the whole exam 3 times.
1 - look at every question and answer the ones I could do without even opening the book.
2 - then go through again and do the questions that I knew exactly where to find the answers
3 - the rest of the time spent on questions where I'd have to actually search, ideally using section content pages, and last resort the index at the back

That way as many points as possible have been collected in the shortest time, leaving the remainder of the time to scour the book.
It worked for me.

For revision, I'd focus on sections 3, 4 and 5.
Section 1 and 2 questions are obvious, near the start of the exam.
Testing & Inspection questions are fairly obvious - section 6, and special location questions are fairly obvious - section 7.

So 3,4 and 5 are the ones you have to know a bit better.
All the best.

That may be a better question for whoever provided the mock exam to you. I'm studying for the exam myself and only sharing the info that I've been given.

What was the question from Part 4?

I cant remember the question, since I stopped that mock paper. It was from -----------.

I am doing the mocks online since I did my course online as well.

I dont know why but its taking me soo long to find answers. I think 2 hours won't be enough for me lol

 

[Hashim]

I cant remember the question, since I stopped that mock paper. It was from -----------.

I am doing the mocks online since I did my course online as well.

I dont know why but its taking me soo long to find answers. I think 2 hours won't be enough for me lol

How much time do you need to revise for this exam? Up until recently I've been hearing from others that they can get the course completed in 3 days from some colleges. How is that enough time to revise for the exam unless maybe I'm missing something...

 

[happysteve]

Memorise these numbers:

1, 5, 7, 13, 28, 42, 46, 53.

Each number above is the first question of the next section of the Regs.

So, for instance, questions 1-4 will be on Part 1.

When you get to question 5, you will be on Part 2.

Question 7 (to 12), the answers will be in Part 3.

... and so on.

The City and Guilds specification for the 2382 Award (the 18th Edition exam) is at:

Requirements for Electrical Installations

City & Guilds Requirements for Electrical Installations qualifications. Leading vocational education and training organisation.

www.cityandguilds.com

(go to "Level 3" then "Centre Documents", the current one is the PDF titled "2382-22 L3 Award in Requirements for Electrical Installations 2022 handbook v1-0").

This document gives the specification for the number of questions on each section. Note that it does NOT state that the questions are asked in order of Parts. I took my 18th Edition exam within a week of the 18th Edition coming out, and within a day or so of the new City & Guilds exam going live. The questions were in a random order, and stayed that way for a few months... then they started putting them in order again. As far as I know (though I've been "out of the loop" as far as City & Guilds is concerned for a couple of years), they still ask the questions in order.

Note that you might have to go back and forward within a Part, it's not like you're guaranteed to aways be moving forward through the book.

The only caveat to the above, is if in the main bit of the Regs, there is to a reference to a specific Appendix, then the answer could be in there instead. For instance, question 10 (say), which you'd expext to be from Part 3, might ask a question about external influence code BA2 (or whatever), and you'll find the answer in Appendix 5, because this Appendix is referred to from Chapter 32.

The other useful tip I can give is that at the start of each Part - and, for Parts 4 and 5, at the start of each Chapter - there is a pretty comprehensive Table of Contents. So if you know (from the question number) that the answer is somewhere in Part 5, then the contents page at the start of Part 5 should help you narrow it down to a Chapter... you could then flick to that Chapter, and hopefully you'll be able to spot something that relates to the question being asked.