Thursday, December 03, 2020 Information on the schedule for the EQE 2021 examination papers - paper D

 "Information on the schedule for the EQE 2021 examination papers" has been published in the EQE website today.

It indicates that:

"The EQE 2021 exam schedule is now available. Candidates are advised that the document may be subject to minor changes as testing continues.

The EQE 2021 will take place online using LockDown Browser. On examination days, candidates are advised to log on to the online examination system's internet platform at least 20 minutes before the start of the relevant paper.

Information on how to register and log on to the online examination system will be communicated in due course.

The pre-examination and both papers C and D will be split into parts. This means that candidates will not be free to allocate their time as they see fit across the different parts of the papers. To compensate for this restriction, the total duration of the relevant papers has been extended. Once the time allowed for a part has elapsed, it will not be possible to go back to that part."

 

The details for each of the Pre-Exam and main exam papers are given in the document.

Breaks and their effect

The document show the break-up and its time schedule of the D paper into three parts, with scheduled breaks in between the parts. It also indicates that once the time allowed for a part has lapsed, it will not be possible to go back to that part. 

Paper D has three parts with two breaks:

• The DI is split into two parts of 1h30 each, each part having 3 questions (2 x 25 marks), with a 30 minutes coffee break in between the two parts of the DI;
• after the first part, when the coffee break starts, your answer to the first set of 3 DI questions will be frozen; you cannot edit those answers when working on the second DI part;
• after the second part, when the lunch break starts, your answer to the second set of 3 DI questions will be frozen; you cannot edit those answers when working on the DII part;
• you cannot yet work on the DII part during the time available for the DI parts.
• A 45 minutes lunch break separates the DI parts from the DII part;
• The complete DII is taken in one part (50 marks);
• you cannot edit your DI answers anymore while working in DII.

The schedule results in some restrictions:

• Candidates in the Paper D thus do not have the possibility anymore to freely decide on the order in which they do the various parts, notably not in whether to take DI or DII first.
• Also, candidates are no longer fully free in the order of the DI questions (as they are provided in groups of three). 
• It is not possible anymore to sacrifice DI-time for more DII-time or vice versa. 

The total duration of these papers has been extended to compensate for the resulting restrictions:

• for a 25 marks DI part, the nominal time would be 75 minutes (exam is designed for 5 hours = 300minutes = 3 minutes per mark), and will have 90 minutes available, i.e. 15 minutes extra;
• the 50 mark DII part corresponds to a nominal DII time of 150 minutes = 2h30, and you will have 3h, i.e., 30 minutes extra. (Note that the Supervisory Board already awarded 30 minutes extra for main exam papers since a few years; most candidates used this extra time for the DII, such that the given compensation kind of reflects the practice)

The Information also indicates that, as in an exam hall situation, you are allowed to go to the bathroom when need arises - but only in (common) scheduled breaks as well as in (individual) unscheduled breaks in the the D2 part:

"During [the 3-hour] part D2 [Note: so not during each of the 1h30 DI-parts], candidates may take unscheduled breaks. Further instructions relating to taking unscheduled breaks will be communicated at a later stage. It should be noted, however, that the exam clock will continue to run during unscheduled breaks, i.e. the examination will not be stopped."

Paper only as pdf file - no printable parts (exccpt calendar)

The Information also indicates that:

"Paper D will have the same syllabus and character as before, but it will be split into three parts. Each part must be completed before the start of the next break, with the next part only becoming available after the break. Paper D lasts six hours. 

 

Candidates will be allowed to print only the calendar. For that purpose, the calendar will be made available well in advance before the start of paper D."

So, the DI part needs to be taken from the screen (pdf viewer).

Also, unfortunately, despite the wish have the DII part available for printing to allow annotations on paper, you will need to take also the DII part from the screen. [Note that it is not yet known whether the pdf viewer allows to annotate the pdf file]. 

Practicing

We strongly recommend that candidate practice exam papers while using the above restrictions and those indicated in the FAQ as of today and do not wait for the exam system to become available for testing:

• take the DI and DII from your own pdf viewer, from the screen;
• take the DI-part of an old paper in blocks of about 25 marks, (e.g., 7, 8 and 10 mark question); allow 1h30 for those 25 marks;
• take the DII part in one gol; if you use a 60 mark DII, take 60x3+30 minutes = 3h30;
• you can print only the calendars;
• do the paper using your usual editor, but only use the basic formatting functions (see FAQ): boldface, italics, underline, enumerate, bulletize. As long as there is no further information, do not use strikethrough, table formatting, drawing tools, colors, highlighting, ...;
• you can make notes on paper, but they are not part of your hand-in (unless you retype them). As you need your timeline and our other methodology tools continuously, we recommend that you do those on paper; which also allows to use A3-size, landscape paper for your annotated timeline.

DI:DII ratio

Note that the DI:DII ratio is 50:50, and no longer 40:60, in line with the Notice from the Examination Board of 13.03.2018 (see here). However, where the announcements indicated that the length of the DI and DII parts would not be known to the candidates in advance, you are now already informed. You may consider this in your further preparation.

Good luck!

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Also see our general EQE blog post here.