Asked the board via e-mail about the weightings of the upcoming june 2012 9195 plumbing and 9196 gasfitting certifying exams as the 9194 common exam has been amalgamated into these exams and practitioners including myself will be sitting the new exams for the first time in june.

Its not clear in the examination guide booklets on the boards website how many common questions will be in them,its not referenced anywhere in the exam guide booklets at all for the certifying plumbing or certifying gasfitting exams.

Got a reply that i need to refer to the examination guide booklets for the weightings of the exams which is displayed on their website.. Basically ignored my real question and acted as if i am retarded...(been pouring over there site for weeks,prob know my way around it better than they do, but their answer implied i didnt know yet what an exam guide is)....so its still unclear how much of the 9194 has been amalgamated into 9195 and 9196 as their is no mention of business/tax related questions content nor is it referenced in the exam weighting tables as a percentage of the exam.

For a fee of $306.12 per exam I think this is severely poor of them, but hey I expect this kind of stuff from them.It's typical as....

I expected no response from them or a response that avoids the actual reason of my question and thats just what I got,these guys are hopeless and need upskilling. There holding certifying exams in june and dont seem to have the correct exam prep info available to candidates,worse yet... they dont care!!
They are the board,almighty and powerful. What could I possibly point out to them ay.......



 Dont know how much to focus on the common study as there is absolutely no measure of whats coming when there should be. All I can do is study hard I guess

Linkback: https://www.plumbers.nz/exam-policies-and-updates/63/june-2012-certifying-exams/1105/

Thought this might be useful to those that are thinking about sitting or have sat exams so far this year.

I sat 9195 plumbing 16/6/12 and luckily for me there was nothing in there regarding business or tax from the common format. I took a punt and figured that after the OAG shake up it would more or less be omitted from examinations as it was not mentioned anywhere in the exam info brief or the weighting table for the exam. I was running short on time anyway so decided focusing on the 45% on water supplies was more important. Im sitting 9196 certifying gas in two days and expect the same again as both exams are new amalgamated versions, supposedly including 9194 common material. 

I thought everything in the exam was trade related and quite up to date and relevant. My only problem was I ran out of time. Another 15mins and I would have cranked it to the max haha.
 
Confident I have done more than enough to pass though. It was much different to the older format, much improved. I answered 80% of the questions straight from information  I found in the supplied AS/NZS codes or code of practice(safety with underground services) etc. You just have to be already a bit confident with the supplied documents and be able to navigate your way around the standards etc to quickly find answers. I read them all thoroughly before I went, and when questions came up I knew, I referenced the books as fast as possible to be sure I had my facts right unless I knew I was 100% right etc which was only like 5% of the questions lol. Why take a risk when the book is right there. Probably saved my self 5% by not being slap happy with the pen.

If you didnt find out what the open book resources were until the day of the exam it would be considerably harder as there are many standards and NZBC documents to read covering plumbing in general so would take a bigger effort to be able to know where to find what piece of information but hell, so much better than 100% closed book. 

Thats what I think anyway. I was actually expecting more questions on content that would not be in any of the books so memory re-call would be my only aide etc, say on AS/NZS 3500.4 Heated Services but there was bugger all. Just a few questions in multi choice about solar etc, some on edpm rubber boot flashings flashings from E2 etc.

I'm just going to throw this one out there but compared with my preparation and based on questions from previous exams it seemed a bit easy for a certifying exam.  I guess I wont know for sure until the exam marks are issued. End of the day though a win is a win and i'll take it if ive earned it.

hope so, would rather not sit it again!