With the schools opening up, and children returning to a more ‘normal’ routine, we have been thinking about our own Business Analyst students and how they are getting on with their studies. Have you managed to keep up with your studies, or has the change or lack of routine thrown your plans out of the window? Or perhaps lockdown has meant you’ve really been able to find the time to concentrate on your course?

Wherever you are in your training, or even if you have come to our site to make the decision on whether to sign up for a Business Analysis Diploma, there is one thing that you will all have to face: the final exam. Exams can feel scary, overwhelming and stressful, but good preparation can make them much more manageable and approachable. So, to give you some help, we have put together some handy tips to get you through them with a smile and a pass!

First, let’s have a look at the structure of the exams, and what you will see when you begin.

The Exam Paper

Firstly, all of the Amatis Training exams are fully online – no papers that you have to receive through the post and send back to be marked. This means that you will get an instant result – no waiting around biting your nails until you find out if you’ve passed.

There are four written exams you have to pass to gain your International Diploma in Business Analysis: two core papers (Business Analysis Practice and Requirements Engineering), one knowledge-based exam (Foundation in Business Analysis), and one practitioner exam (Modelling Business Processes).

All the BCS accredited exams provided through us are multiple choice – you will be presented with a detailed question and a series of options to pick. There are 40 questions, and the diploma-level courses (such as the Foundation in Business Analysis) are one hour long – breaking this down, this will give you one-and-a-half minutes per question.

Top right of the screen, you will see a long white progress bar – this will diminish the more questions you answer. Time is displayed to the right of the bar, so you can keep an eye on your progress and how long you have left.

Once you have passed these four exams, it’s on to the oral exam.

The Oral Exam and How to Prepare For it

The oral exam is the final hurdle before qualification, and is conducted interview-style, with two examiners asking you questions.

Amatis Training runs an optional oral preparation workshop to provide you with all of the information you need to prepare for this. Martin Maya, founder of Amatis Training, has been a BCS oral examiner for over 10 years, and considers this workshop indispensable in equipping candidates with the key knowledge and experience to pass first time. In an interview with George, a recent graduate (who passed first time), George said;

“You spoke about the kind of questions that I’d be facing; what the examiner is actually looking for. Without it, it would have been a much more difficult task to accomplish.”

You can view his full interview here.

The workshop includes what to expect on the day, a run through the entire syllabus, sample questions (and sample papers to help you remember what you’ve learnt in the four courses), and revision mind maps.

So, now you understand the exam process, let’s talk about strategy.

Read the question

Let’s start with the most important. Make sure you’ve read the question properly – read all the way to the end before trying to answer it. Have you ever been part of a training day where they set you a question that puts forward a complicated problem, before saying right at the end ‘don’t answer this question’? I have, and it certainly taught me to read to the end before starting. You could miss a vital piece of information if you assume you know what the question wants before you get to the end of it. If you are unsure of your answer and are torn between two of the options, go back and reread – the clue is always in the question!

Trust your instincts

Research suggests that your intuition is important in an exam – your first answer is likely to be the correct one. So, don’t second-guess yourself. As long as you’ve read the question properly, your first answer is likely to be the right one. Trust yourself. You’ve completed the course and done your revision – you know your stuff. Once you’ve answered a question, move on.

Time management

Keep track of how long it takes you to answer each question. If you are struggling with a scenario, move on and come back to it later – the live BCS paper has a handy tool called ‘question navigator’ that allows you to mark a question to come back to at the end. This way you can make sure you have time to attempt every problem, instead of having to rush the last few at the end.

Finally, stay calm and work through the paper methodically and carefully, and give yourself the best chance to pass with flying colours.

Additional Resources

EAL Students: if you are a student with English as an additional language, and you are worried about the one-hour limit, you have the option of extending your time limit by 25%.

Practice papers: if you want to feel really prepared, Amatis Training has put together sample papers that will give you a better idea of the type of questions you will be asked. Each time you complete the sample paper, the order of the questions and the multiple-choice answers will change. These are all available on the Amatis App, so you can access these on your phone, wherever you are.

Good luck, stay calm and pass that exam!

We hope that these tips will help you with your exam prep, and pre-exam nerves. We were going to say good luck, but you won’t need it – your preparation will see you through!

Amatis Training – what we offer

Amatis Training provides BCS accredited Business Analysis training and consultancy courses, mentoring and support at foundation, practitioner, and professional levels.

For more information about Business Analysis certification and the courses available, take a look at the Amatis Training website at www.amatistraining.com, or fill in the contact form for the chance to discuss the courses further with an expert.