LS exam appeal startegy seminars?
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Hi-Note
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- Joined: Mon Jul 18, 2011 12:32 pm
LS exam appeal startegy seminars?
Does anyone know if there will be another one of these seminars held again this year? August 11 is the Review/Appeal date.
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E_Page
- Posts: 2138
- Joined: Thu Jun 23, 2005 6:49 am
- Location: El Dorado County
I haven't heard of one, but here's the short version in bullets
- Appeals is not your opportunity to retake the exam. You cannot change answers but can clarify ambiguous answers if those answers were correct but not totally clear. So don't waste time by reworking any problems or questions. Use your time for review and clarification.
- It is an opportunity to justify answers marked wrong which you believe to be correct. In order to be successful, support your answers with specific references to laws or commonly accepted texts on survey procedure.
- It is your opportunity to determine where your weak areas are so that you can either devote extra effort to those areas if you will be taking the exam again; or to devote more effort if they are areas which will be included in your practice; or if they are areas which will not form part of your practice and you are otherwise successful in your appeal, you will know the areas outside of your competence so that you can avoid them in your practice until such time that you do become competent in them.
- Do not demean the graders. Some of the appeals team may have also been on the grading team. All have been on grading teams in the past. It's difficult to give an examinee any creedence when their justification is that they got the question wrong because "the grader was an idiot". You may laugh, but that seems to have been some examinees' appeals strategy in the past.
- Take your time. You have 8 hours. Use it to become familiar with the topics you clearly missed so that you can focus future studying. Also use it to research the support for your answers in order to provide strong backup for answers marked wrong that you believe to be correct.
- Make sure that the support you use is in context. Sometimes a sentence or two pulled out of a reference may appear to support your position, but when read in full context, the passage is shown to describe an exception which is valid only under specific circumstances. Ensure that your application works with the facts given in the problem.
- Don't argue an answer based only upon your understandings and experience. Back up ALL arguments with appropriate reference to law or text. A few years back, one examinee got a question wrong because he didn't fully understand what may or may not be a valid monument. In his appeal, he pretty much called the grading team idiots because they used a particular object as a valid monument and he insisted that it clearly wasn't. If that person had checked the appropriate reference rather than answering and arguing on his own misguided understanding, he would have found a section specifically addressing the matter, might have got the question right, and might have learned something in the process. Given the attitude, that person may have just failed the exam again.
- Check each and every answer marked wrong. On very rare occasion, the graders just blow it. Each problem of each exam is initially graded independently by two LSs of that problem's grading team. In case of disagreement, a 3rd may look at it. Every once in a while, the first 2 to look at it each make the same fat-finger mistake and each inadvertently mark an answer wrong that each would call correct if given a second look. The process is set up to minimize such occurrences, but they do happen.
- If you know the areas where you lost points, take the time between now and the appeals date to go through the applicable reference material, and if you haven't already, highlight pertinent sections and mark them with those little plastic Post-it tags so that you don't waste time trying to find something you remember reading in one of those chapters somewhere.
- Get plenty of rest the night before.
And lastly, although it may seem like a stretch of logic to you now, barely missing the cutscore may actually be a stroke of luck as compared to barely making it over. By failing the exam but being close enough to qualify to appeal, you have the opportunity to see the areas in which you were weak, which are the areas that deserve greater attention whether your appeal is succesful or not. Those who passed, whether they got nearly all available points (known as the "clearly competent") or met or just barely cleared the cut score (the "only just competent" on the day of the exam), don't get any information indicating where they did well or where they did poorly. Many pass the exam, but if the truth were given to them, they'd find that they may be completely incompetent in the subject matter of one or possibly two of the problems, or that they barely got just over half the points across the board. Going through appeals has the potential to enable you or guide you to become a significantly better surveyor than one who barely passed and decides to now stop studying. Whether successful or not, make the best of the opportunity. With the focus that an appeals review can give as to areas of future study, if not successful this year, you should be able to pass with very little difficulty next time.
Good luck.
- Appeals is not your opportunity to retake the exam. You cannot change answers but can clarify ambiguous answers if those answers were correct but not totally clear. So don't waste time by reworking any problems or questions. Use your time for review and clarification.
- It is an opportunity to justify answers marked wrong which you believe to be correct. In order to be successful, support your answers with specific references to laws or commonly accepted texts on survey procedure.
- It is your opportunity to determine where your weak areas are so that you can either devote extra effort to those areas if you will be taking the exam again; or to devote more effort if they are areas which will be included in your practice; or if they are areas which will not form part of your practice and you are otherwise successful in your appeal, you will know the areas outside of your competence so that you can avoid them in your practice until such time that you do become competent in them.
- Do not demean the graders. Some of the appeals team may have also been on the grading team. All have been on grading teams in the past. It's difficult to give an examinee any creedence when their justification is that they got the question wrong because "the grader was an idiot". You may laugh, but that seems to have been some examinees' appeals strategy in the past.
- Take your time. You have 8 hours. Use it to become familiar with the topics you clearly missed so that you can focus future studying. Also use it to research the support for your answers in order to provide strong backup for answers marked wrong that you believe to be correct.
- Make sure that the support you use is in context. Sometimes a sentence or two pulled out of a reference may appear to support your position, but when read in full context, the passage is shown to describe an exception which is valid only under specific circumstances. Ensure that your application works with the facts given in the problem.
- Don't argue an answer based only upon your understandings and experience. Back up ALL arguments with appropriate reference to law or text. A few years back, one examinee got a question wrong because he didn't fully understand what may or may not be a valid monument. In his appeal, he pretty much called the grading team idiots because they used a particular object as a valid monument and he insisted that it clearly wasn't. If that person had checked the appropriate reference rather than answering and arguing on his own misguided understanding, he would have found a section specifically addressing the matter, might have got the question right, and might have learned something in the process. Given the attitude, that person may have just failed the exam again.
- Check each and every answer marked wrong. On very rare occasion, the graders just blow it. Each problem of each exam is initially graded independently by two LSs of that problem's grading team. In case of disagreement, a 3rd may look at it. Every once in a while, the first 2 to look at it each make the same fat-finger mistake and each inadvertently mark an answer wrong that each would call correct if given a second look. The process is set up to minimize such occurrences, but they do happen.
- If you know the areas where you lost points, take the time between now and the appeals date to go through the applicable reference material, and if you haven't already, highlight pertinent sections and mark them with those little plastic Post-it tags so that you don't waste time trying to find something you remember reading in one of those chapters somewhere.
- Get plenty of rest the night before.
And lastly, although it may seem like a stretch of logic to you now, barely missing the cutscore may actually be a stroke of luck as compared to barely making it over. By failing the exam but being close enough to qualify to appeal, you have the opportunity to see the areas in which you were weak, which are the areas that deserve greater attention whether your appeal is succesful or not. Those who passed, whether they got nearly all available points (known as the "clearly competent") or met or just barely cleared the cut score (the "only just competent" on the day of the exam), don't get any information indicating where they did well or where they did poorly. Many pass the exam, but if the truth were given to them, they'd find that they may be completely incompetent in the subject matter of one or possibly two of the problems, or that they barely got just over half the points across the board. Going through appeals has the potential to enable you or guide you to become a significantly better surveyor than one who barely passed and decides to now stop studying. Whether successful or not, make the best of the opportunity. With the focus that an appeals review can give as to areas of future study, if not successful this year, you should be able to pass with very little difficulty next time.
Good luck.
Evan Page, PLS
A Visiting Forum Essayist
A Visiting Forum Essayist
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Hi-Note
- Posts: 22
- Joined: Mon Jul 18, 2011 12:32 pm
Evan,
Thanks for the excellent advice! I have seven points to make up and would very much like to do exactly that; However, your last point is well taken.
I am looking forward to appeal/review process both for insight into the exam process as well as my own weakness in certain areas.
I was not able to complete the exam so I won't be able to take a complete measure of my skills in all of the subject matter that was covered.
Speaking again to your last point, It certainly would shed a different light on examinees to require a complete exam in whatever time it takes, say a six hour session, rather than a 4 hour sprint. That is a another discussion and I'm sure this forum is packed with threads on that issue.
Thanks again for taking some time and your for words of wisdom!
Thanks for the excellent advice! I have seven points to make up and would very much like to do exactly that; However, your last point is well taken.
I am looking forward to appeal/review process both for insight into the exam process as well as my own weakness in certain areas.
I was not able to complete the exam so I won't be able to take a complete measure of my skills in all of the subject matter that was covered.
Speaking again to your last point, It certainly would shed a different light on examinees to require a complete exam in whatever time it takes, say a six hour session, rather than a 4 hour sprint. That is a another discussion and I'm sure this forum is packed with threads on that issue.
Thanks again for taking some time and your for words of wisdom!
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Rob_LS
- Posts: 375
- Joined: Mon Sep 22, 2008 4:56 pm