Firstly my apologies if this is in the wrong place, I’ve just signed up and just finding my way around.
I passed my class2 last year and I’ve booked to do my cpc transport manager in 2 weeks time.
I’m just looking for advice on what to expect, any study tips guys may have. I have the RHA home study pack, am I allowed to take that into the case study exam?
Thanks in advance.
Yes the case study exam is an open book exam - so you can take your book in with you.
Only advice I have is study all you can, don’t ignore ‘home work’ they give you on the course and pay attention throughout the course.
I found in most cases all they are trying to do is teach you to pass the exams, a bit like learning to drive - they teach you to pass the test then you start learning.
There is a lot to it, some items will not be popular with you. As an example, I am fine with all the compliance, Health & Safety, Employment Law but can’t get my head round the financial aspects such as profit and loss and working out accounts. Luckily the compliance items are the larger part of the exams.
Basically it is one of those times in your life where you need to concentrate fully on this and this only. Listen to the trainers, take their advice (RHA should be good) and study, study, study.
Hi Tommy,
First of all good luck! I agree with Shep, the homework really pays off, especially for the multiple choice. The more practise papers you do, the more accustomed to the question bank you will become.
Maths really isn’t my strong point so I had a crib sheet taped to the inside cover of my binder with the formulas for tyre depreciation, linear vehicle depreciation and even converting into euros on it. Helped massively in the open book exam. I also found that file dividers with ‘chapters’ written on the that broke each section up really helped. Meant I wasn’t rifling through my file like a maniac in the exam 
Hope it goes well for you!
One thing, check your exam letter again…the exams are next Friday, not a couple of weeks.
I had someone turn up for their exam with me a week late last year!!!
Lots of useful information here, including past test papers ocr.org.uk/qualifications/vo … 012-05669/
khdgsa:
One thing, check your exam letter again…the exams are next Friday, not a couple of weeks.
I had someone turn up for their exam with me a week late last year!!!
If he is doing OCR, yes he could be doing it through CILT
Thanks for the responses guys, yes the exam is next Friday the 17th.
I’ve printed some case study past papers off to practice with but how will I know if I’m right? Lol.
Plan from now until Friday is just do as much past papers as I can, is the case study part easier cause effectively I’ll have most of the answers with me in my home study folder?
Also the forum looks great, can’t wait to get stuck in.
Reading the questions thoroughly is the most important thing. On the exam I did last year, the costing question involved collecting cheese from Holland. The case study stated that the vehicle needed to be available for work the next day.
Out of the three or four chaps I spoke to on the course, none of them had realised that this was only possible if costed as a double-manned job, because of the duty time involved. They costed it as a one man, night-out job.
Very important to notice details such as that.
Great point mate thanks.
Within the exam is there room to scribble etc before writing down your answer neatly?
A little apprehensive if I’m honest, but can always re sit if I need to.
If I remember rightly there are some blank pages at the back.
I did a one week RHA course, so loads of mock exams/case study’s.
With regard to the multi-choice exam, the trainer advised not to look back through your answers with the time remaining. Good advice, as during practice I often found that I changed a correct answer. If not sure, don’t answer it at all, then go back through it and just answer those.
I’m thinking I should’ve done the 2 week course tbh as haven’t made much time to study at home, I’ll make the best of what I can though.
My boss has asked me if I’d consider doing it to eventually take over from his Dad. Profit and loss, fixed and variable costs etc are something I still remember very well from my school days but what’s all this formula stuff about? Detested that at school with a passion but general operators stuff doesn’t worry me greatly.
Another tip with costing questions (boring, but guaranteed, lots of marks also) is to make sure that when you have to add costs at pence per mile and then pounds per mile that you have decimal points in the correct places.
Simple I know, but I was amazed how many people in that class could not compile costs when half the costs were in euro’s and half in sterling,such as road tolls/ferry fares. Worth making sure that you are ok with the conversion when given a set exchange rate.
Good luck with it.
Are the National/International CPCs all in one now? Just wondered why a national cpc holder would need to work in Euros?
Pence per mile? Can they not do questions on “£x per load” for tipper drivers? 
Glad I got mine in 1982 when it was all about running wagons!
Muckaway:
Are the National/International CPCs all in one now? Just wondered why a national cpc holder would need to work in Euros?
Yes it’s an all in one exam, hence why you need to use Euros (€) as part of the int’l aspect.
The old Nat’l exam leaned slightly on the Int’l but to do the int’l (which you could do 1st) you used a lot of the knowledge gained from the nat’l. So doing the int’l first meant you where very brave, nieve or foolish.
I’m actually curious to know why Tommy wants to take the exam?
If it’s just another tick box exercise along with his C licence, followed by C+E, as many do, or is there another motivation?
I used to run my own removal company but closed it down around 2 years ago, moved into driving for a local removal company but eventual plan is to have a couple wagons back on the road, likely in the removal industry again.
Regarding taking the course notes into the exam. Don’t rely on this too much.The examiner knows you can do this and answers will rarely, if ever, be a cut and paste job.I found that the time allowed for the multi-choice was about 4 times that required and the time allotted to the case studies was only 90% of what was required. This is by design as the examiners are looking to see how well you work under pressure. The OCR website also has the examiners comments on how the previous years candidates answered the questions. I found this a good insight into what depth they were looking for in the answers.
Good luck with your exam.
Muckaway:
My boss has asked me if I’d consider doing it to eventually take over from his Dad. Profit and loss, fixed and variable costs etc are something I still remember very well from my school days but what’s all this formula stuff about? Detested that at school with a passion but general operators stuff doesn’t worry me greatly.
There are ‘formulas’ for working out stuff like tyre depreciation. An example to calculate tyre costs is:
Price of set of tyres / life expectancy = price per km
multiply the mileage of a journey by the price per km and you have the tyre cost.
Like I say I’m rubbish at maths so I wrote down all of the ‘formulas’ for the more mathsy stuff like this so I could refer back to back to it in the case study exam!