I have been asked by Training Link owner Gary Hupston to make the following post on BKN copied from one earlier today on the ICB Forum
It has come to our attention this morning that one of our Students has been distributing freely to anyone who asks copies of two test papers used by our exams department for preparing our students for the B1 and B2 exams. Unfortunately the answers provided by the student are actually the ones submitted to our exams department for marking, and some of the answers were incorrect and had to be reworked by the student.
We dont actually provide the answers to these tests as doing so would be a bit pointless
Therefore if any of you have come across these papers please do not use them as firstly they are copyright of Training Link and secondly the answers provided are not those provided by Training Link but the student.
Cheers
Dave
-- Edited by Dave Campbell on Monday 23rd of March 2015 08:13:49 PM
I don't think that it helps that there are ICB posts out there saying that whilst they sell their own papers they know that students swap them amongst themselves and they pretty much turn a blind eye to it.
In such situation it must be difficult for people to know what is ok to share and what is not.
Where would Training Links demarcation line be? Sharing questions without answers? sharing only papers that came with example answers or no sharing amongst students at all?
It does seem a little sad that there is a market for these things caused by ICB being one of the few professional bodies who does not make old exam papers freely available to all so students are quite desperate to get their hands on examples.
Might be worth noting for people who find themselves in that situation of not knowing what the real exam will feel like the ICB books by Dr Peter Marshall include old IAB and entry level AAT exam papers with answers plus old ICB question papers without answers. Of course, they would be from the old ICB syllabus but for the lower level papers what can really change that much?
I'm not saying that the distribution of intellectual property is ever right (I assume that you have clauses in your student contracts restricting such). Just saying that I understand peoples reasoning for wanting to get their hands on old papers before sitting the real exams and there are other ways to do it.
Personal view is that an example paper without a stock example answer and marking scheme is pretty much useless anyway so I'm seeing your post more as a damage limitation excercise for TL to distance yourselves from the supplied answer which of course is a wise move.
As I am sure that the person concerned was not looking to profit from this (#1) I hope that TL will not be imposing anything more than a stern reprimand upon the person concerned?
Of course, thats non of my business and purely TL's affair. But I hope that you will at least try to consider that the person concerned was probably doing this from a good place and made a mistake rather than any untoward intent being involved.
kind regards,
Shaun.
#1 Too busy to be reading the ICB site at the moment so haven't seen the conversation.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
My personal view is people pay a lot of money for training courses and any extra training information will of course be of help. As you know reputation is everything and as such if this test paper did its rounds with incorrect answers then it would appear that Training Link are not very good as this paper had the students answers on it which some were incorrect.
The student in question has been contacted and he/she could not apologise enough, indeed one of the people that received the said test paper was studying with another training provider and questioned the answers which were incorrect, it is obvious to me that people would assume these were Training Link answers which of course could greatly damage our excellent reputation.
We understand that students want as much practice as possible before sitting an exam, which is why we are writing more practice and self-knowledge tests, we are not a here is a book and there is a tutor kind of company, the student is the most important part of our business and it is our job to get them to the end of their studies.
