ABSTRACT
The previous chapter on study skills gives some useful advice on tackling examinations and should be read in conjunction with this chapter. NEBOSH has a commendably thorough system for question paper preparation to ensure that no candidates are disadvantaged by question ambiguity. Candidates should pay particular attention to the meaning of command verbs, such as ‘outline’, used in the questions. Candidates have always had most difficulty with the
command verb ‘outline’ and, for this reason, several of the specimen questions chosen use ‘outline’ so that some guidance on the depth of answer expected by the Examiners can be given. It is difficult to give a definitive guide on the exact length
of answer to the examination questions because some
expected answers will be longer than others and candidates answer in different ways. As a general guide, for the long-answer question on the examination paper, it should take about 25 minutes to write about one and a half pages (550-620 words). Each of the 10 short-answer questions require about half a page of writing (170-210 words).
