Thursday was the e-EQE C Exam (C-1: 0930-1230 CET - 180 mins and C-2: 1315-1615 CET - 180 mins). Sorry, I do not have a copy available (I was not a benchmarker), but please post any comments you have. The EPO normally makes official copies of the exams available in the compendium in the week after the EQE.
- I heard from many people that the subject matter was very mechanical.
- There were also a lot of complaints about the amount that you needed to read in C-1 before you could answer. Most people seemed to have needed 2 hours before they could start answering.
- In the afternoon, the experiences seem to have been reversed, with plenty of time available. But, according to the exam rules, it is not allowed to answer any of the morning questions in the afternoon.
- A common feeling is that the exam timing should have been C-1: 4 hrs and C-2 hrs.
- Having to read so much in C-1 is a severe disadvantage to non-native speakers.
- I also don't understand why the C exam is not split evenly into 2 parts, either as 2 mini cases or two sets of associated claims with different prior art. The committee has had 2 years to do this - the WISEflow restrictions are still the same as in 2021. There is no excuse for this. Again, there will be many "fit-to-practice" candidates having to retake the C-exam in 2024.
- I have heard a rumor that candidates who seem to improve their understanding of the case during the afternoon are suspected of cheating by discussing part 1 with someone else. There is also an innocent explanation - candidates are so overwhelmed in C-1 that they start reading as soon as they have printed out C-2. Or some of them reread C-1 in the lunch break. This is not forbidden by the rules - it is just a risk because they do not know how relevant the C-1 information will be in C-2. But for 2021, 2022, and 2023 it has been very relevant. There is a very simple way to fix this - split the exam properly!
- And again, it seems that all the discussions about changing the exam syllabus are also completely pointless because the committees will just make the exams that they want to. I have now changed my opinion to be in favour of the multiple-choice only option originally proposed by the EPO.
- It is unacceptable that good, well-prepared candidates are now spending several years trying to pass these 4 exams due to the unpredictable technical problems and due to the unexpected exam contents.
- And non-native speakers continue to be punished. They do not expect any favours, but they should be treated fairly and they should able to adequately prepare based on previous exams.
Hi, for me part 1 was challenging from time managment perspective. Agree that split 4+2 will be very fair. I do not understand how good attacks can be made within such little time. For part 2 - the wording of „for” was misleading for me. I decided to the „safer” attack and include feature of claims in it. Still i did not have enough time to make alternative attack for „suitable for” interpretation. For claim 5 it is a mistery for me whether partial problem approach was expected or just a one „huge feature”. I took the second approach as far it is still in practice „the one material” only deacribed in details. Time was kilking on part 1, it is demotivating such fight with time more than with exam difficulty… and those rumours - I find it really touching. I tried even not drink to much to not go to the toilet during exam so I was so dehydrated after all. The break is very short taking into account that you want to download your paper from C1 and print it to have it in C2 and later print documents to C2. And go to toilet :/ and maybe such crazy idea to eat sth! I cannot get how cheating could be possible during the break.
ReplyDeleteIt annoys me that they have plenty of discussions about possible cheating, but absolutely no discussions about making a decently balanced exam for non-native speakers.
DeleteUnfortunately, there is no way to correct in the marking if candidates do not have time to compose and submit most of their answer.
DeleteI filed a formal complaint last year on the very day of the paper for having technical issues and for loose lot of time wasted chatting with invigilator and to the phone with helpdesk, and the answer of EQE committee seemed to cast me in the light of a cheater looking to get undue advantage.
DeleteThat really annoyed and irritated me a lot.
These are professional qualification exams - it is reasonable to expect them to be made and marked in a professional way.
ReplyDeleteI fully agree with you. I wrote the Paper C as benchmarker today and found the split into C1 and C2 interms of time and the amount of required reading completely lacking common sense.
DeleteGood point Pete
DeleteHi Pete, I completely agree what you have written. I could do 2 times C2 with the time given but I could not finish the first part of the exam. Btw, I want to thank you for the support you are giving and opening this blog so we can express our worries.
ReplyDeleteHi Pete. Thank you for the comments. I agree with all points with respect to the exam. Too mechanical, not well distributed. I also could not finish all attacks in part I and came up with ideas on part I only later on. Part II would have not needed nearly as much time as part I.
ReplyDeleteSplitting C into two parts is a mistake.
ReplyDeleteA long exam is a problem because of the long screen time, but mainly because the possibility to cheat also increases. Pre-exam is in 4 parts, D is in 3 parts - they have been successful because they adapted the way that the questions are asked and they basically make the exams in parts.
DeleteIt is only a mistake because they refuse to adapt the C-exam and still seem to make a 6-hour exam and then split it afterwards into 2x 3 hours.
It is not that difficult to either make 2 smaller cases (3 hrs each), or to make one exam with 2 parts with splittable prior art if you design them that way.
Agreed on all counts. There’s simply no reason to provide documents in part I, which the candidates are never going to use. Not even for common general knowledge or for definition of terms, examples. Then the purpose seems to be to confuse the candidates. The exam shouldn’t be for failing the candidates alone.
DeleteI am Italian and a biotechnologist. C1 for me was very difficult to comprehend both from a mechanical point of view and from the language. Non-native speakers and, in particular, people with a chemical background continue to be disadvantaged. Moreover, before e-EQE it was possible to make an attack on the first claims even at the end of the exam or after more than 3 hours, after having read properly all documents. Before the split was possible to read and process the information provided in a reasonable amount of time. I realized I would have done an attack on claim 1 only during C2. Why should I not pass paper C because of the split (other than because of the language difficulties and strongly mechanical technical field)? The overwhelming difficulty of the paper both from a technical and linguistic point of view puts hurdles especially on non native speakers.
ReplyDeleteI hope this be taken into account when marking.
Agree with all points posted here. It's also the ripple effect this has on your mindset. If you struggle to finish part C1 because you didn't manage to get through all arguments due to the time constraints (which definitely was the case today) then this puts you in a negative mindset for the second part and likely that you're going to perform poorly on the second part because the first part is playing on your mind.
ReplyDeleteplus the mental torture that you are no longer allowed to comment on the C-1 part during C-2, even if you have time left over.
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ReplyDeleteHaving talked with candidates from EQE2023 who are seeing the bar raised significantly for passing A, B and C in the WISEflow format, I withdraw my support for the attached changes to the syllabus by the epi. It makes no sense to discuss this when the A, B and C committees have the complete freedom to ignore their own guidelines and ignore the WISEflow limitations in place since 2021. A & B are minor exams that anyone with 2 years of experience should pass with max. 2 attempts. C should also be possible with more experience and max. 2 attempts.
ReplyDeleteNo employer is going to pay for someone to spend 4-6 years trying to qualify 1x per year while fighting random technical issues, unannounced changes in format & content, technology "mood swings" and bloated exams.
This is killing the EPA profession, and effectively shutting out non-native speakers from qualifying at all.
Please switch to the multiple-choice format originally proposed by the European Patent Office as soon as possible, similar to the Pre-Exam, but for all elements. This is hopeless and it is getting worse.
Proposed changes to EQE by epi
DeleteThanks for the contribution and support of us, non-native speakers. I wonder what the last drop was ?
DeleteIt takes the committee about 2 years to complete an exam, so these were all made from the start with the full knowledge of the limitations of WISEflow and that they must use combined technologies for AB. And all 3 exams ABC were more difficult than last year. I think D was within the normal boundaries, although D2 was maybe a bit long.
DeleteThe last drop was probably C - there was not even an attempt to reduce the reading in C-1.
They had 2 years to do it. And they are ruining so many careers of good candidates who are completely fit-to-practice, but cannot do the trick correctly on the 1 day per year that they need to perform. It used to be that only C was like that, but A and B clearly have ambitions to become like C, with a different trick needed each year.
I worry that it is going to end up like in C 2007 (pass rate 15% before correction) when the ex-chairperson of the C committee said that candidates could not pass their perfect C exam, should choose a different career.
Papers A, B and C this year were very ridiculous. It is either near impossible to do for life sciences or mechanical candidates to do on a given day. The papers needs to be suitable for all candidates. This was the remit for papers A and B. Now, they are completely making it inaccessible for a group of candidates based on their background.
DeleteThanks Pete, I wish more who qualify notice and are aware of the changes (which is making the profession a lot worse). Papers A and B are becoming very difficult to pass nowadays by testing things that they know favours the background of one set of candidates over the other set of candidates. As for paper C, it has been very difficult to do in 2021, 2022 and 2023 ever since this split was introduced.
DeleteHow about offering candidates that have had technical problems a solution at a local patent office?
ReplyDeleteThat is a good idea. But I think the only route for that to happen is through the national patent attorney associations. They can even charge people for it to cover their costs. The main thing is a stable, public network.
DeleteYou should:
ReplyDelete- complain directly in your own case via the EQE helpdesk and/or form
- complain to your national patent attorney organisation (they will have a committee or a member concerned with EQE)
- complain to your national epi PEC representative:
I am an Italian pharmaceutical chemist and I think it is very frustrating how heavily mechanical was paper C, especially the first part. There were a lot of technical terms belonging to the field of mechanics which were impossible to understand for non-native speakers candidates having a background in pharma/life sciences. All candidates should be put in the same conditions, but this is not the case. But after all it is not surprising - in the last years EQE is becoming more and more an exam for engineers. Also, the split in the two parts was not equal at all. The time for the first part was not enough, there was a lot of information to process and it was also technically more difficult than the second part. I don't know what they are doing, these exams are becoming completely detached from reality. It's very frustrating after months of study to not pass the exam because of technical limitations. It's not fair.
ReplyDeletevery similar story with papers A and B this year too.
DeleteI really agree with you.. I'm an italian biologist...At the beginning of paper C I was looking for the terms in an English-italian dictionary but only some of the were there...the text contained too few explanations of the technical terms and functions of the different part...like pedal drive or pedal bearings or ceramic races...they should provide a glossary to explain these terms...
DeleteI agree, also the English-Dutch dictionary did not have many terms used in the C paper... if you were not a mechanical engineer, there was basically no way to find out how the pedal was working (unless based on your personal knowledge & interpretation, which is not allowed to use)
DeleteThe division of paper C into two parts should be reflected in the exam making process too. Last year was already challenging due to the numerous readings and the requirement to address two claims. This year was even more demanding, with three claims and a highly structured exam. Several candidates I knew taking paper C this year have expressed complains about the time pressure and excessive reading material in the first part, which inevitably impacts their performance in the second part. Hope that the grading will be fair, and the second part will be assigned a higher score than the first part.
ReplyDeleteBy saying structured exam I mean it is a bias towards the candidates who are in the field of mechanics and engineering
ReplyDeleteSix years ago the subject matter was "corkscrew" ...
ReplyDeleteAlso, thanks for sharing this. Having done more than 25 recent papers C and A and I noticed the shift from well-known inventions (i. a. an iron, airbag, patch, razor, dishwasher tab) to “specialised inventions” such as an underwater energy storage device, complex device providing a triboelectric effect or road racing pedal for detection of dead spots. Of course, all information is provided to understand the invention from a distant field. It is a unique chance to learn about new technologies and get to know thermology from fields you have never been interested in (sarcasm). I should not mention non-native speakers who have to use the information without any translation to known terms, sometimes resulting in “ignotum per ignotum”. I don’t understand why some papers are dedicated to candidates from M/E field (e.g. C 2021, B 2022, A 2023), since "Chemistry" and "Electricity/Mechanics" papers should have been ditched some time ago. I agree that inventions are form technical fields that are accessible to everyone. However, candidates lose time to understand the invention, therefore, they have less time to score marks. I am not sure that is fair. Also, I don’t understand why Paper C distribution between C1/C2 was AGAIN so uneven.
ReplyDeleteThis year Paper C was provided with highly EM bias, more than usual. It was lexically not easy to grasp which forced non-native speakers to invest their time looking up for words in the dictionary in a situation where the time pressure would not even allow proper reading of the patent specification. The split was more than uneven. Overall the Paper was of comparable technical difficulty and lenght with the most criticized 2021. I interpret this year C as a clear sign of discrimination toward non-EM people with native language other than DE, EN or FR. Maybe the committee is attempting to get rid of exams fees of all these people and invite thrn to focus on the respective national exams? Or maybe are commitees are themselves not fit to draft such exams? Morally and politically incorrect. This will necessarily have consequences on the exam reputation, raise doubts as to the actual competences of exam drafters and lower people trust in the system. Hope due account of the difficulties set forth above will be taken upon marking.
ReplyDeleteIn the German version of paper C, there seems to be a translation error. The English text uses the term "power" throughout the documents A1, A5 and A7. In the German version, this is translated with "Leistung" in A1, see e.g. [04], but with "Kraft" in A5 and A7, see e.g. A7, [09]. "Leistung" (in Watt) and "Kraft" (in Newton) are different parameters.
ReplyDeleteThis has an impact on the interpretation of the strain gauge sensors mentioned in A4, which in turn affects the potential novelty attack on claim 1 based on A4.
That is very sloppy translating. There is no excuse for an incorrect technical term. They used to use EPO technical translators who would never make that mistake - are they just relying on machine translation for an exam?
DeleteIf you use DeepL properly, you first feed in your exact dictionary of technical terms, and then DeepL uses these exact translations throughout the full translation pipeline. I guess that other translation engines work similarly. Either, the person in charge of the translation does not know at all how to feed in the technical terms or did not know that "power" actually is a technical term that requires correct translation.
DeleteI don't think paper C this year is that bad in terms of spotting annexes to use for the attacks. I agree it was quite mechanical but there are much less complex issues this year. I think paper C in 2021 and 2022 were much harder.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your input. Can you give some context - were you a first-time sitter or re-sitter? How did you find the C-1, C-2 time balance? What is your technical background? Were you reading in your native language? Did you print everything printable out?
DeleteThat further proves our point in my opinion… if you are familiar to the tech field and you are doing it in your mother tongue, then it was an easy exam… paper C should not be an exam about Language and Technical field, but rather than Opposition itself. So it is indeed a biased exam
DeleteI heard that the EQE secretariat is refusing to pass on any emails to the Examination Board which were not submitted via the form. This puts candidates in an impossible situation. The Disciplinary Board has been very negative about candidates who do not provide details about their complaints as soon as possible, and before marking. They are basically stopping you submitting info that you may need to rely on in an appeal. At least require a written decision from the Secretariat rejecting your complaint, so that you can either appeal that decision or submit it later during an appeal.
ReplyDeleteComplaints about not being able to complain can be sent to: EPO ombudsman
ombuds@epo.org (don't expect miracles, but at least you will get a written response)
Alternatively, contact your national epi PEC committee contact.
Alternatively, you can try to directly contact a member of the Examination Board.
Something else has also changed this year. I have never seen such indifference and radio silence from the EQE organisation regarding problems and the ABC exam content.
ReplyDeleteThey also now seem to assume that everyone is cheating. Maybe that is the reason for the crazy ABC exams this year ? - make them so unpredictable that no-one can prepare or figure out the correct answer.
But if they really believe everyone is cheating, they also need to be honest about it, and give the national patent organisations at least a chance to organise test centers with invigilation. Or, like in the UK, allow larger offices to host candidates with invigilation.
I help candidates prepare for future exams, but I have no idea what they are going to do next year. I also have no idea how candidates should practice ABC in general to prepare, or how to practice in WISEflow. It is no longer a test of patent attorney knowledge or skill - it has become an expensive lottery for candidates.
It is very sad to say, but the German patent attorney association and the German patent and trademark office (DPMA) might be a part of the reason that national patent organisations do not get the chance to organise test centers. There are more than 4,000 German patent attorneys, and my guess is that a large fraction is also part of the ca. 13,800 European patent attorneys, which might give the Germans a portentous voice.
DeleteMy concrete reason for the assumption: when the Covid restrictions hit full force in 2020, our final exams of the German legal studies were cancelled very last minute and then postponed to an auxiliary unsupervised "confidence-based" online format. I had called the FernUni Hagen, which is officially in charge of these legal studies, before, but was told at the phone that the German patent attorney association refused to participate in the general online strategies and existing test centers of the FernUni Hagen. In the same spirit, when in winter 2020/2021 we were left in limbo about potential cancellations until the actual German final patent attorney exam dates, as spokesperson of the "Amtsjahrgruppe", I contacted the exam organisation, but was told that the online format of the EQE was seen very critical in general, independently of its organizational details.
P.S.: I got the years slightly wrong in the previous post: the unsupervised "confidence-based" online Hagen exams applied both to 2020 and 2021, with the preceding last minute cancellation of the in-person handwritten exams in 2020 and from the beginning online exams scheduled in 2021. Accordingly, the final German exams were only in winter 2021/2022.
DeleteThanks for the info. It is clear that there a lot of competing opinions behind the scenes, but all I am asking for is that candidates are informed well in advance what they can expect. If there are plans to go back to in-person exams, this should be made known asap so that candidates can decide what is in their best interest. If non-native speakers are to be effectively blocked by requiring close to native language skills, then maybe it makes more sense for candidates to study the appropriate language than practice old exams.
DeleteEvery time a candidate fails despite adequate preparation, it is like being kicked in the head. Even after 1 failure, self-doubt starts to dominate their EQE preparation. Most attorneys are "control freaks" to a certain degree - you need to be able to keep your cases under control in spite of external influences. That makes the effect of failing much worse in some.
If candidates are facing several years of resits with random chances of passing, it might make more sense to find a part-time law degree and do that. I had a colleague who did that - it took him 5 years. However, he passed everything first time, and he said the workload was similar to a national + European training. He also had a lot more work options open to him after qualification.
The EQE system should respects candidates enough to be honest about the exams that they are preparing for.
Just an afterthought if you want to look at the number of potentially required places in a national test center: if you look at the EQE 2022 statistics and take the people who wrote Paper C per place of residence, you will notice: DE more than 500 people, GB more than 200 people, FR more than 100 people, NL slightly less than 100, IT slightly less than 80 and any other country below 50. Just for comparison of the capacities in the DE system: there are about 50 candidates per trimester taking the German exams.
DeleteWhy should any national institution make sure to have over 500 computer places available?
A law degree?
ReplyDeleteThere is a small number of German patent attorneys who have done the full degree and are also attorneys-at-law (i.e. lawyers). As lawyers, the don't need to additionally qualify as European patent attorneys in order to represent at the EPO.
DeleteActually, as these people are already qualified and trained for infringement proceedings at national courts, I am slightly envious about their possibilities of excelling at the UPC;-)
Yes. With a national law degree you can do everything that a patent attorney can do (and more). I was discouraged from doing it because it was a "lot of work" and "would take a long time". But I qualified before Pre-Exam (in 2007), when you could study intensively for 1 year and pass most of the main exam exams first go. Or resit 1-2 in the second year with an 80% chance of passing. And you could do the national qualification in the 2 years before preparing for EQE.
DeleteUnfortunately, if you are already in the EQE system, it is hard to change.
But if I was starting now, I would do the law degree first. Don't forget that you can also handle trademarks and designs - you are not limited to patents.
Yes - national lawyers can also represent before the UPC.
DeleteAlso realise that national patent attorneys have a right to speak and assist before the UPC, so you don't need to be a European Patent Attorney with a Patent Litigation Certificate to take part. Actually, assisting is what most patent attorneys will do in real-life for practical reasons.
In practice, most patent attorneys will not handle a case themselves completely before either a national court or the UPC. Usually, you will work with a lawyer because they have the experience and knowledge to deliver the correct court documents at the right time. They will also have a paralegal specialised in the court document submission system.
You really need to be specialised in the court procedures. One of the most common mistakes is filing something too late, or the wrong thing, and that can leave you liable if the case fails. Make sure that you keep up to date (permanently educate yourself) and check your liability insurance if you are planning to handle infringement/invalidity court cases yourself.
It seems straightforward to handle opt-out and opt-in requests yourself. As someone on LI pointed out, you become an "opt-out" patent attorney :-)
Thanks for the hint with the liability insurance. As German patent attorneys, we are required to have one anyway, but I guess that the coverage amount might need to be higher if you also handle infringement. Nullity is performed before the German patent court anyway by German patent attorneys, and that's why we have this obligatory trimmed-down (compared to studying to become a lawyer) legal university training.
DeleteA law degree would prevent the EPO from getting paid for providing badly written exams.....what a pity that would be. I am aking myself how these exams drafters can even look at people face considering the bad job they did in the last two/three years. Are they even qware of the impact their job may have on people life? Or do they simply dont care? Outrageous and of poor moral8ty. Part 1 seemed to have been thought with the deliberate aim at not letting people through. Would be really courious to see if the quality of the exam gets better if they stop being fed with peoples fees.
ReplyDeleteThe fees mainly cover the administration. Drafting and marking of the exams is done by volunteers from both epi and EPO, so I am not sure that there would be much of an impact.
DeleteYou cannot blame the drafters because they do not have the overview. The problem seems to be higher up in the "organisation". Or in the secret procedures followed to generate and test the exams. Or it is a deliberate tactic to completely overload candidates. They can always adjust the marking to allow a good percentage of those who survive the "shock and awe" to at least hand in something relevant. But what useful skills are being tested?
And this clearly favors native speakers.
More law degrees would divert funds away from the epi to national lawyer associations..
There was some discussion on Telegram about the increase in technical complexity of the inventions over the last few years. They will usually put it in the extra paragraphs to explain, but they do not give any time for people to actually read it and to understand it.
ReplyDeleteI have heard from the committees when the AB exams were combined that they were advised by an "expert" that providing more explanation means that candidates, and in particular non-native speakers, can read it faster because it is "just explanation". They seem to be still following this "advice". Unfortunately, I have never been able to find any publications that support this theory of "speed reading". Non-native speakers also need more time to type their answers. It is possible to type the whole exam in your own language if you request it beforehand, but in practice it wastes a lot of time because you need to ise the words of the exam in your argumentation.
And, in all my years teaching, I have never found that to be true for many non-native speakers. Native speakers immediately see that it is explanation and can scan through the text, or even skip over it to read later if they need it. My experience is that if you provide more details, non-native speakers will generally need more time, whatever the environment - they will read everything because the cannot read between the lines. Especially, when the explanation contains words that they do not know.
There is also a spectrum of non-native speakers. This is based on my experience of teaching, and in every country, there is a distribution of skills, even among native speakers. The countries are classified based on the average language skill in English. For the countries not mentioned, I do not have enough experience to fill them in.
Very generally, in countries such as Sweden, Denmark and Netherlands, the level of English is so high, they are close to native speakers, especially after spending a year studying English materials and answering questions.
In the middle are countries with a good level of English, but they often have a more limited vocabulary, such as Poland, Spain and Greece. A lot of Germans and Austrians would be in this category.
Needing more time are those from countries such as Italy, Turkey and Finland. Although Finnish people study English in school, I have been told that they need to read to the end of a sentence in Finnish to understand it, so that means that they also do this with other foreign languages.
And then there are 2 complications: on an exam, you are afraid of missing something (particularly resitters), so they will often read it twice. This is also partly related to stress- it is almost impossible to learn something new at the exam.
The other complication is the C-exam itself, where they scatter the pieces you need and hide them in the most unusual places. One of the things that many methodology courses teach is to scan quickly to see if there is anything useful and to dismiss anything trivial. This saves time and seems to be currently the only way to read the C-exam in 1 hour. But only native speakers and the first group can really do this with confidence.
Possible things to improve:
Delete1) I have proposed a maximum number of words for each exam in the past. You can see that the lengths of the D questions and D2 do seem relatively stable, but that is not true for ABC.
2) There should also be a maximum number of claims, annexes etc. The human brain cannot cope with more than 5-7 pieces of information. You need to keep some of the info in your head for fast reference.
3) If they need to explain something, then they need to reduce the rest of the reading work as well.
Or publish a technical primer that candidates can read weeks before the exam. This would not be giving anything away.
4) Don't count any testing by Dutch, Danish & Swedish committee members making the exam to count as non-native when testing.
5) Giving more time (the exams were increased by 30 mins several years ago to help non-native speakers) does not help because after the first year, they just make the exam longer. Yes - you are supposed to be able to do the exams with 30 minutes less 😱.
6) Reintroduce the translation tables into non-native languages that they used to have for technical phrases in the C exam.
7) Drop the ridiculous requirement in C for filling in the opposition form details. It adds nothing to the testing except extra stress, and actually means that they can award negative marks if something is wrong. Most candidates spend way too much time on this without realising that they will get no marks. Just require the arguments. Otherwise be consistent, and require the Request for Grant form also be filled in during the A exam ;-)
"It is unacceptable that good, well-prepared candidates are now spending several years trying to pass these 4 exams due to the unpredictable technical problems and due to the unexpected exam contents"-
ReplyDeleteThank you Pete, well said, you are the first tutor who pointed that out.
Furthermore, I passed my pre-exam in 2019 and I prepared for the main exam in 2020 and it was canceled.
As a resitter (and non native speaker too) I would have expected that the 2020 exam would be made up later, maybe have two EQE in 2021 since it was canceled a week before, then everything were ready!.
Because I think to have the right to have the same possibilities as my colleagues of being able to pass the exam in the less number of years possible, WiseFlow issues apart.
You had a lot of bad luck with 2020 - it really screwed a lot of people up for many reasons.
DeleteBut they have had 2 years to adapt the ABC exams to the limitations of WISEflow, and they just seem to be making them more difficult.
There is no tutor who has any idea how to prepare for this.
And there should be a buffer to cope with technical problems because they can happen to anyone, even those who have done all the mocks. So, it should also be possible for a prepared candidate to pass if they lose 20 mins due to a problem.
I don't understand why the material cannot be reduced in length to allow candidates to read, THINK and to produce a thoughtful answer.
The EQE Committee has seemingly decided to completely ignore the limitations of the electronic EQE. Despite the huge feedback they have received from candidates over the last 3 years, and some attempts in the past to rectify technical issues, it is hugely regrettable, that this year eEQE has demonstrated a clear decision to ignore completely the technical challenges of the exam and to treat it as if it was still on paper. The lack of empathy towards candidates and the willful lack of transparency is simply sad to witness. As someone who passed in 2022, I recall all the difficulties -including past failure- associated not with appropriate preparation, but with circumstances beyond a candidate's control. Creditability of the eEQE surely must mean something to the EPO, and it would be important for them to address this issue. Instead, I fear that their next communication will be in the form of a press conference claiming once again, how successful the 2023 exams have been.
ReplyDeleteThe EPO press release was sent immediately after the exams were completed, so they are already considered a success. They do not normally have a press release when the results come out.
DeleteAnd they are already defending the exam being difficult and a possible low passing rate by noting that it is a "mark of the highest quality". I don't understand how they can suggest this without demanding permanent education - all that knowledge is forgotten within a few weeks.
They also suggest that EQE is the only path to represent clients before the EPO, which is not true.
But 40% of the candidates were women, so it is all good ;-)
Sorry, but if this turns into "the success rate of the EQE2023 was very low, with a large number of women attending", this is really not funny at all!
DeleteI have just received the EPO newsletter, and seen the "almost 40% were women" EQE participation statement. I'm surprised they didn't put a statement in there on carbon neutrality! Will they back up their statement later on how many women failed?
DeleteIt is very strange to mention the 40% because the EPO does not influence that at all. It would have been more interesting to know how many people had technical problems.
DeleteThey also state that "Tailored adjustments were made for any special needs". That is a very generous phrasing - the process for this is very secretive, so a lot of candidates do not even know it is available, and they do not know what is considered as "a special need" to get an adjustment. I know that when the exams were in person, they had separate rooms and typists to help candidates, but I have not heard any examples how it works online.
CIPA's Diversity and Inclusivity Committee sent a letter to the EQE Secretariat in Feb 2023 asking them to clarify the adjustments - I don't know if CIPA have received an answer with details about what was done.
The letter is on LinkedIn, posted by Alexandra Wood from Forresters. There are a couple of comments on LinkedIn about the letter, including this one. I hope this is an exception:
Delete"Thanks for this, it's so important. I couldn't believe the uphill battle I faced last year trying to sit the EQEs while breastfeeding a 3 month old. The "reasonable adjustments" given were the choice between breastfeeding on camera or losing time on the exam, which doesn't seem like a fair choice for anyone to make!"
The EQE committee press relase seems an excusatio non petita, accusatio manifesta.
DeleteYou might be correct. But they should just publish statistics and facts about what they actually have done and how the request process works. I am sure that there are some positive stories as well.
DeleteIn the past, I know that they have really taken a lot of steps to help people with vision and mobility problems - for example, several years ago I heard from a candidate who could not write for long periods, so they arranged a typist in a separate room. He read the exams, made some notes and dictated his answer. They typed it in and he checked it after printing. And he passed all the exams at the first attempt :-).
I am impressed that anyone can do a C-exam like that!
Fully agree with providing statistics related to facts. E.g., I would think it very reasonable to publish the statistics on passing exams not only per country, but also per gender (or any other outstanding criterion of statistical significance that the EPO may have collected).
DeleteConcerning the special needs, it might also help to make it more transparent what is considered a viable kind of special need, evidence thereof and effective measures taken.
E.g., the dictation example is impressive, but I also understand that there might be more concerns to allow online dictation in the present eEQE format since monitoring that the correct person performs the voice input is much harder remotely. (And yes, I do understand the idea about national test centers, but I think that having the necessary computing resources set up for every single candidate in the bigger countries just would not work. Maybe, however, it would work for a small number of special needs cases, e.g., to allow for dictation while ensuring that the person did not bring a senior colleague to the potential test center.)
Now the strange unrelated statement about 40% of the EQE candidates being women makes sense: just look at the photo here https://www.epo.org/news-events/news/2023/20230427a.html - if you have followed some German politics in the past, you might see a resemblence to that photo https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/seehofer-und-seine-mannschaft-maenner-fuers-museum-1.3924720 of a former politician who presented his "homeland museum" (his own expression for the federal interior ministry).
DeleteWhen we should expect to receive results this year, July again?
ReplyDelete