Has any one used the home study notes you can get to do your cpc or would you be better doing a course your thoughts please
i did the course sept 2008 with tyne & wear lgv, more expensive but if like me done no studying since school well worth the money
I tried doing home study some time ago but wasn’t self-disciplined enough to stick with it. Having had experience of home study and doing a course, I would say you would have more chance doing a course, especially as a good CPC trainer will anticipate the questions you are going to be asked and focus some of the training towards those questions.
I took the course and passed in 2009, I would not wish to do the course via home study as it’s very difficult.
You be better off, in my opinion going to a good training provider the course is not easy and you have the support of the tutor and others on the course. There is quite a lot of mathematics involved which will come up in the exams and the case study is also quite difficult. Basically it’s studying for and passing an A level in a fortnight, not easy believe me.
Basically, you will have three exams. Two are multiple choice and if you have been driving for a while then you will know a fair few of the answers already (although not enough to gain a pass)
Most difficult is the Case Study. You are given a fantasy scenario while you are on the course (in fact, this is released a week or so before your course starts). You have to answer questions on the Case Study.
Here’s an example of a past Case Study and the questions you are required to answer.
Case Study. ocr.org.uk/download/pp_09/oc … cn_sep.pdf
Exam paper. ocr.org.uk/download/pp_09/oc … qp_sep.pdf
thank you for the advise. anyone done this in the north west■■?
Course rather than home study any day!
If you have run your own business or have a good understanding of business and finance, home study is more feasible.
Harry , thanks for posting that, very interesting.
Conor… thats a good point.
home study and a licnece to run a buissness nowerdays Hile Hitler
Dieseldogsix:
Harry , thanks for posting that, very interesting.
No worries, this is a good page to look at if you are considering taking it.
ocr.org.uk/qualifications/ty … documents/
It gives all of the case scenarios, question papers and perhaps most importantly, Examiner’s Reports explaining which parts of each paper were answered well and which were not over the past three or four years.
You should be aware however that the format of the CPC is changing next year, and part of the change is that the Case Study will no longer be released in advance, partly because many trainers were correctly anticipating the questions which would be asked and focussing on those during training- my own trainer did this.
I tried the home study method but finished up doing it at college. Unless you have a lot of willpower and few distractions then it can be difficult to devote the time needed.
If you have A levels, you can home study, if not I would recommend doing it in the class room.
Silver_Surfer:
If you have A levels, you can home study, if not I would recommend doing it in the class room.
Yes, OCR’s notes say that you need to have a command of English and Mathematics to at least GCSE standard before taking the course, and the CPC is a level 3 RSA examination which is the equivalent to an A level.
There’s a hell of a lot to take in… 
To be fair it’s probably not as hard as an A level but you just need to be able to study well to do it at home.
Silver_Surfer:
To be fair it’s probably not as hard as an A level but you just need to be able to study well to do it at home.
I don’t know when you did yours Silver, but my trainers said it has got massively more difficult over the years.
Before I even booked it I asked my ex-boss, who took his in the 1980s, how much he thought it would cost, and he said I would almost certainly get change from £200. In fact, it was £1310.
Wherever you do it, once it’s finished book yourself in for a holiday or a brain transplant
Because you’ll be so knackered and mentally burned out afterwards you’ll probably need both!
Such it’s the level of concentration req’d
jay-ldn:
Has any one used the home study notes you can get to do your cpc or would you be better doing a course your thoughts please
I would always suggest doing the course. You have a group of people with you all in the same boat, and bouncing off each other often brings things to the head, that you didn’t think of. Also silly questions or comments by people stick in your head and you remember them during the exams. Good courses, I have both national and international, and they have stood me in good sted. Well worth the hard work, but don’t think the exams are push over like some people say, they are not and the case study can make or break you. The guy from my work who did it with me, failed the case study three times!
I breezed the 2nd exam and case study for the N’tnl
I was far too confident with pt1 and IIRC did it in less than 7 mins, walked out, grabbed a coffee etc
Only to find out I’d failed it. The re-sit was embarrassing as I was kicking myself for failing it 1st time.
The Int’nat’l was altogether a different thing
I stand by previous posting many moons ago, that you need to focus soley on the course/exams and have no other distractions in you life while your doing the CPC to succeed in passing it
peirre:
I stand by previous posting many moons ago, that you need to focus soley on the course/exams and have no other distractions in you life while your doing the CPC to succeed in passing it
Yes, I “cleared the decks” for my CPC course, turned down all offers of work, didn’t even have my kids round. A couple of blokes on the course were actually running haulage firms and every time we had a 10 minute break they were on the phone trying to sort out some emergency or other, I have no idea how difficult that must be.
I still have no idea how well I did, although I think I will fail the International because I focussed so much on the National, seeing as it wasn’t going to be possible to re-sit just one failed module in February. I would be pleased with that though.