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Open Book Fire Certificate

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stephen1974
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Open Book Fire Certificate

Post by stephen1974 »

Anyone sat the open book exam yet? what was it like?

Booking mine for April.
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Re: Open Book Fire Certificate

Post by Alexis »

Bump
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Re: Open Book Fire Certificate

Post by Safe&Sound »

Hi Stephen,

I've not personally done the new syllabus but we do teach it.

Have you had a look at the NEBOSH website as they have put up some OBE resources and an example of a scenario.

Source: https://www.nebosh.org.uk/documents/cer ... -final.pdf

Hope this helps.

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Re: Open Book Fire Certificate

Post by stephen1974 »

Thanks. That wasnt what I was expecting based on normal nebosh papers. Actually looks like it will be interesting exam.

Are NEBOSH still looking for their daft specific phrases and wording do you know or have they joined the real world now?
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Re: Open Book Fire Certificate

Post by Safe&Sound »

You're welcome.

From my understanding they have removed the previous command words and based their scenarios and expected answers on real life situations.
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Re: Open Book Fire Certificate

Post by stephen1974 »

Well, sat the exam, submitted the paper but im 100% sure I failed.

Obviously cant go in to details, for the most part I was ok, but one question just stumped me. It was on a subject area id barely covered. I looked through the training book from the training provider, i looked through additional books i've got, I looked on the internet. The training material had less than HALF A PAGE on the subject. The other material had a few paragraphs and they were all very general, absolutely nothing specific.

The internet, that was no help really, so many generalisation but nothing specific.

Pretty inebriated. :( Not covered in the training material.
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Re: Open Book Fire Certificate

Post by Alexis »

stephen1974 wrote: ↑Thu Jun 09, 2022 9:51 am Well, sat the exam, submitted the paper but im 100% sure I failed.

Obviously cant go in to details, for the most part I was ok, but one question just stumped me. It was on a subject area id barely covered. I looked through the training book from the training provider, i looked through additional books i've got, I looked on the internet. The training material had less than HALF A PAGE on the subject. The other material had a few paragraphs and they were all very general, absolutely nothing specific.

The internet, that was no help really, so many generalisation but nothing specific.

Pretty inebriated. :( Not covered in the training material.
Sorry to hear you so down about it Stephen.

As you know, sometimes we think we haven't done well and it results in good news eh!

Not that it helps, but got my fingers, eyes, ears, legs and arms crossed for your pass. ./thumbsup..
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Re: Open Book Fire Certificate

Post by Messy »

How frustrating for you to have a question relating to a non syllabus area.
It shows that you obviously know the syllabus well so have put a lot of effort in. So I wish you well and hope you will let us know how you got on in due course

I would love to know the question that stumped you πŸ€”
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Re: Open Book Fire Certificate

Post by stephen1974 »

Just have to wait and see.
I think I did ok on the other questions. If it wasn't for those marks assigned to each question id be confident in the answer i've given. but with the mark you start counting to see you've said enough things an dthat makes you question if you've said enough.

Regarding that question. Im not going to say what it was because I can get in trouble for it. However, whilst trying to research the answer I cam across the question and related scenario word for word on the internet. Obviously someone had posted the whole thing. No one had posted any answers though.
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Re: Open Book Fire Certificate

Post by AlexWk89 »

Did you sit the April one? I did mine in April 2022.
So... the wait for the results is loooong. Had my promotion interview the following day and got it, so now under pressure to deliver (and now really need it for work!) πŸ˜„ 🀞🀞
The scenario felt very familiar, close to a fire incident that actually happened.
My experience with Certificate in Fire Safety:
I've done a lot of self-study outside of textbook, probably 60/40 ratio but have do admit I was overdoing it a bit πŸ˜… helped at exam though (i hope!)
1. Textbook gives you overview of issues, but for exam you really need to understand the subject to apply in real life scenario. If you took exam in April I suspect it might have been task 2 you speak of? I was actually intrigued by this phenomenon during self study, so felt at ease until I started word count and trying to figure out if I have enough points there. But there was very little in textbook about it.
So for those that will be taking this exam, my advise would be- do go outside of textbooks. If there's mention of something you don't fully understand- research! Be confident in everything the book mentions. You may think if study material only mentions it, it's not that important- Wrong!
2. I know taking mock exam takes work and know of couple of people that started NEBOSH mock exams and stopped half way through as was taking too much effort. I'd say- DO IT! It was very helpful- firstly it help me planning my exam technique and timing appropriately, so I knew how much time I will roughly need to write the actual exam- it's really important as having 24hrs for submission can be a bit of a blindfold and you may feel you have more time than you actually do. Secondly course provider gave feedback and helpful tips. I also have shared my mock with much more experienced colleague who gave me even more helpful tips and honest feedback. Priceless!
Exam started at 11 and realistically I had to finish it the same day, just read it again and apply correction before submission next day. I was starting work at 8 next day, so I've submitted 1st version late evening, just in case I overslept πŸ˜‚ and then removed and resubmitted my final answer 8:03AM πŸ™ƒ
3. Another tip I'd give- don't draft your ideas or answers on separate piece of paper- keep it on your answer sheet- you can amend it, remove it, correct it etc. Drafting ideas on a side, I just lost a lot of time unnecessarily really. Then you look at the clock and get shock to the system lol.
4. You can find a lot of tips on open exam preparations and answer structure online, in written or video form- use it. Even if they're not specific to fire certificate. They're helpful
5. I'd say don't focus on eloquence πŸ˜‰ English is my second language so I'm always trying to make sure to write pretty full sentences on exams πŸ˜„ by the time I finished (and I did try for concise answers) I was at 3850 words so in the end my answers were stripped almost to bulletpoints πŸ˜† stripping down unnecessary words in line with "they'll know what I mean" πŸ˜‰ Pretty sentences gone.
6. Focus on the scenario- take out as much as you can from the scenario! Everything that's written there matters, nothing is there for no reason.
7. Once I've read the final paper after exam ended, I couldn't understand what took me so long! πŸ˜€ a lot of self doubt comes in play I guess...
It was my first open book exam so I thought it's easier than normal exam but I have to disagree now. In normal exam you have set time, you write it, give up the paper and it's done. In open book there's a lot of second guessing and I wish I didn't have my submission papers after I was done.
The same with FRA, can't tell you how many times I've changed and readjusted things. Do it, submit it, be done with it. But with all honesty I might have chosen too complex building for FRA, as it certainly didn't take 3hrs to risk assess (although as my tutor said- don't overthink it!) πŸ˜‰

With all my tips above- remember I've not received results yet! πŸ˜‰

Update: passed with credit :)
Last edited by AlexWk89 on Thu Jun 16, 2022 10:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Open Book Fire Certificate

Post by AlexWk89 »

Also not sure what are experiences of others but post exam interview is not scary at all (as long as you know why you've answered this way not the other and what are your priorities). Interview was short & pleasant
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Re: Open Book Fire Certificate

Post by stephen1974 »

Congrats on the pass.

The post exam interview was nothing at all, just a validation that you did the work and how did you find it. I raised the issue of the lack of training material and the nature of the question so if there is an issue it doesnt sond like im whining after the fact.

Just submitted the practical today. That was another fun one. Supposed to do it on your workplace, I work from home. Arranged to do it somewhere else and they pulled out with covid at the last minute.

Given that when the new fire register thing comes out they want you to be level 4 anyway, kinda makes nebosh fsc redundant anyway so Meh.
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