Intrigued by the title? Natalie Dawes, Candidate Support & Business Development Adviser at Bespoke Training Solutions, explains…
When you were at school, did you ever say to the teacher that the dog ate your homework? Did anyone ever, actually say this?!
I was an exemplary student at school, I always did my homework, always handed it in on time. I worked hard at school – in fact ‘hard’ is probably the key word.
I had friends who could bang out an essay easily, friends that could talk about the ins and outs of history like they’d been a part of it, friends that could speak pretty much fluently in the languages that we were learning. It’s not that I couldn’t do these things…I just found them harder than others did.
Why?
My learning style, the resources and support that I had access to, my drive or desire to learn, the list goes on. The trouble with my schooling was that there was very little choice in any of these things, it was much more a case of going along with what was what. So I did…and I found it hard, even as that exemplary student.
It’s something I took into teenage years and partly into my adult life. It wasn’t until I did my diploma that this mindset altered.
Lessons along the way
I started my first R0 when I was 33, some 15 years after I’d left schooling. I knew I still carried a bit of fear around learning from my school days, but something felt different. I actually wanted to go through this learning process and that by itself made such a difference to R01.
It took me around six months to work towards my exam and thankfully, I passed first time. I was pretty proud of myself and pleased that the hard work (lots of it!) paid off.
What I wasn’t then prepared for, was the absolute dog’s dinner that I made out of my next unit – R02.
Now there is validity to why I’m referencing it as a dog’s dinner and it goes back to my opening question about whether you’ve ever said about the dog eating your homework. This is actually what happened, in that our puppy at the time of me studying towards R02, actually ate my study guide.
Thankfully she only managed to get a hold of it long enough to chomp down the side and through some of the front and back cover but, I do wonder whether she was trying to tell me something about my CII study guide?
I deferred my success twice with R02. If I’m honest, the first time was because I took the exam before I was ready. I definitely wouldn’t have said that at the time though, as my confidence levels were reasonable given that I’d passed R01 first time. It was also the ‘plan’ with my employer at the time, and I didn’t want to let them down, so I went with it.
Lessons to be learnt from this; don’t play off of confidence from previous units, they’re all different. Our approach from one unit to another may need to differ – something I found out the hard way. And, never sit an exam unless we are absolutely ready, we don’t need that kind of trauma!
The second time…reminds me very much of school. I had worked HARD. Really hard. I had pulled apart the syllabus, I had white boards with areas that I knew I was weaker in, and I worked my way through each of them. I practised questions and was scoring highly. I was ready. And yet I deferred success again.
Part of me didn’t think I could do it, perhaps I just wasn’t cut out for these types of exams, or type of learning. Perhaps I wasn’t cut out for this industry. I was absolutely gutted.
I took a little time to reflect on it and I realised a few things that could have been contributing to my efforts. It was how I was studying towards this unit and the pressure to get through, that I was feeling.
How I was studying
It’s one thing reading the study guide over and over and I bet a few of you will relate to this when I say, that I am not someone that can just read something and have it stick. I’d made copious amounts of notes but if I’m honest, all that helped with, was regurgitating the study guide as opposed to actually understanding what it meant.
I also realised that there were some things that no matter how many times I went over it, it just fell out of my head again. Classic example – formulae!
I knew I needed more exposure to the understanding and also application of knowledge, rather than just trying to remember what the book said.
Back then, you could purchase questions banks from the CII, so I purchased both and I started working my way through them but not as exams, one question at a time in absolute isolation.
I took each question, then took the time to break it down, to think about what it was actually asking me. I made notes on this, spotted common areas that I wasn’t understanding and revised them.
I did the same with the answers, looking at each one and justifying why it was or wasn’t a contender and again, this helped highlight areas that I was weak in, so my revision was much more specific.
It took so long to go through the sheer amount of questions in this way, but it genuinely helped to figure out where I had been going wrong and in doing so, I also learnt about me and how I need to study – I was finding my technique.
Pressure to pass
Not only had I realised there was an issue with understanding and application of knowledge, I also realised how much pressure I was under. I didn’t want to let my firm down, they had really supported my studies and all of the ups and downs.
I’m someone that tends to pile quite a lot of pressure on myself too, so this added to not wanting to let anyone down, so I made a decision. I was going to go for this exam a third time but I decided to keep it to myself. Looking back, it wasn’t my best decision from an honest point of view for my firm, and if I’d deferred success again, that would have been an awful story to tell.
I did pass on the third attempt though and I honestly think that by doing things in my own way, really helped. The funny thing is, my firm were not putting any pressure on me to go for another sitting, so you could say that sheer amount of pressure I had been feeling, was probably an internal thing. The stuff we do to ourselves eh?!
What happened with R02 really?
R02 was the biggest learning curve of all the studies I’ve done since leaving school. It challenged me in ways I wasn’t expecting, especially after my first time pass with R01. It took me about a year in the end, to get through R02 and I am not ashamed of that at all.
Just like the friends I had at school, I have connections through studies that have passed this unit in a matter of weeks. However, we are not all the same. Some of us have to work harder to achieve the same things and that is ok.
The learns I gained from R02 such as how I go about studying, ensuring that I’m considering the application of knowledge as well as trying to remember things, is something I’ve carried with me into other units.
I’ve learnt a lot about myself too, the undue pressure I put on myself, the fear of letting others down and I have slowly gotten better at managing that.
A further discovery, relating to the one thing I didn’t have at school – choice. After R02, I knew I had choice in HOW I learned, but I didn’t know I had choice in WHAT materials I used to study. I studied a further three units until I found that out!
Failure (deferred success) is an opportunity to learn
Some may think it’s a strange think to say but I am actually grateful that I deferred my success a couple of times with R02. I learnt that it wasn’t because I didn’t have it in me. It was because I needed to understand how I study best.
I’m also grateful that whilst studying towards R06, I had started to build a bit of a community on LinkedIn. It was this community that introduced me to alternative materials (namely BTS!) and you could say that the rest is history.
Moral of this story? Study in a way that works best for you (the how and the what), always invest time in working out what this looks like, you’ll thank yourself for doing so! And if the dog ever treats your study materials as their dinner like mine did, you know where to come…
Bespoke Training Solutions have been supporting regulated exams for 20 years this year! Known as ‘the exam experts’ within the industry, BTS provide support for the CII regulated exams by way of study guides, e-learning resources, and workshops for the full R0 suite and many AF units.
Visit https://www.bespoketrainingsolutions.com and check out the brand-new Careers Zone for study plans, answers to exam FAQs and lots more to support your journey.
