17th Edition e-learn course and exam Cheap! [Not spam "honest!!"]

[Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp]

Hi, Just went to Northampton to upgrade from my old 16th Edition. The company I work for will not invest in any training other than the bare minimum to get us on site and as my main objective was to decorate the CV in order to facillitate my departure, I wanted a cheap routeto the 17th that I could fund myself.

Brilliant! The material suppled was all I needed apart from the works copy of the 17th edition to take to the exam.

This course cost me around £130 and it was brilliant. It allowed study at any time and practice questions could be carried out using my Ipad, there seem to be quite a few additional sources on the internet in addition to those supplied.

The downside! For me there wasn't one, but I'm not sure what actual support is available for questions etc. The system does appear to be run on a budget and the terminals for the exam are not quite "cutting edge". Still it does what it says on the box and it was a far better option than those nights spent trying to keep awake at the local college doing the 16th.

I do tend to wonder about the value of the test though, I did start to go through the documentation supplied, but on the advice of our electrician, dropped that in favour of doing loads of practice exams.

I can do the theory, but the exam seems divorced from the practicalities. In fact as I have found in the past with City and Guilds multi choice exams, the examiners seem to be more concerned with the students interpretation of the questions rather than a technical ability for the subject itself.

Anyway I'm afraid, more than ever before, I would look on someones success at the 17th edition as an ability to pass the exam, nothing more. In fact I would guess that there may be quite a few 17th edition qualified people without even a basic understanding of Mr Ohms dictat.

This incidentally is regardless of the route, I found the 16th of a similar ilk, and of course we didn't have saunas and farmyards to add to the trivia in those days.

Roll on the 18th. I want to stick some rolling stock into a 747!

AB

[Brian Gaff]

So they said, they would let you have a discount if you spammed everywhere you could with this message. I have no issue with that at all, I'd have done the same, but come on, we did not come up on the down train. Brian

[Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp]

Well I'm afraid you got it wrong!

No discount, in fact I paid up front a month or so back.

Basically it is a product that I found very easy to use and it was a far better route to the qualification than my local college was fifteen years back.

As I have pointed out to many people in the past, to tell untruths to cretins such as yourself requires a reduction in the moral standards I have set myself. Very few members of the human race have attained the status and respect that I would have for them to directly mislead them, that includes members of this NG

AB

[ARW]

Well I did not think it was spam.

[spuorgelgoog]

I assumed it was genuine, but even if it was advertising (or 'advertorial') at least it's on-topic.

Owain

[Robin]

Me too.

But AFAICS the qualification would not help me with DIY since building control here charge £300 extra for any notifiable domestic electrical work carried out by someone not registered on a relevant Competent Person scheme. Whether that person has a certified qualification makes no difference.

[Andrew Gabriel]

I did my 16th Ed at a local (at the time) techincal college in the evenings. I quite enjoyed it - turned out to be a good bunch of people to meet up with once a week.

Half the people on the course were electricians, and a worryingly large number of those had no hope in hell of passing - no idea about maths, resistance of conductors or insulation, etc. Their only hope was to learn everything by rote, rather than understanding any of it. A few of them passed, but I gathered several had tried many times before.

The other half were split between various other trades which were involved in electrical work, e.g. heating installers, BT engineers, and 3 DIYers. These all passed.

It was almost exactly same situation when I did the C&G PAT testing.

I assumed you were talking about the C&G theory exam.

Yes, the prerequisit for PAT testing course is basically being able to wire and plug properly, and understanding the difference between milliohms and megohms. You are not required to be an electrician, but it was the electricians which had the most trouble with this.

Unfortunately, it's gone far too commercial - companies trying very hard to get their products made mandatory in new issues, and has lost sight of proper cost/risk based considerations.

[Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp]

Never was too much of a socialite, but it was a good excuse for the pub. Made it very expensive and Ones head hurt a lot on Friday mornings.

No not really. I started studying the book in a fairly thorough fashion with due regard to the why's, but I did the Btech ONC and HNC in Electrical Engineering which does drum Ohms law in nicely!

The Regs book falls a bit short as it doesn't show the development of the "sums".

Anyway I switched to doing mock tests for ease really.

I did that also. I used to design and build instrumentation, then have to take it to the electrician for PAT testing.

The company that used to do our testing where I now work also had trouble. We have had a number of certs assuring us that earth bond tests were carried out at 1kV.

Come to think of it the lecturer had a bit of trouble too, he was disdainful when I suggested that to test class 2 devices wrapping them in foil was needed. We were both a little surprised when he turned the page to read the test procedure :-)

The people with most trouble though are the ones that don't seem to realise that the actual electrical test produces a very low fail rate in comparison with the visual inspection. Twice now I have found cables connected with chockstrip bearing a pass label.

AB >

[Robert]

I did the C&G PAT exam a few years ago for work. 2 day course - I skipped the first day; open book multichoice exam 2 hours allowed, myself and 1 other were the only ones who had previous technical knowledge, finished and checked answers in 20 mins , we both got 1 wrong answer !!! Several people were having real problems completing all questions in the 2 hours. Most of the exam questions were not really relevant to real life testing. Question we think we got wrong related to a floor washer whose insulation and earth resistance measurements changed ( but didnt fail) over a period of 2 years use and we had to select the probable cause.

[Chris J Dixon]

I know that one, one of them has a capital "M". ;-)

Chris

[Bob Martin]

Cretins? Is your real name Fred Smith?

[spuorgelgoog]

Only when abbreviated, which Mr Gabriel did not.

Owain

[whisky-dave]

Yep it stands for Many Ohms. ;-)