Here’s a very practical and efficient 10-step approach to working your way through each Task in a

full 3 hour ICS exam:

1. Note how many minutes you have to complete the Task and the amount of marks this implies the Task is worth. Approximately: -

2. Skip forward (using the ‘Next’ button) until you reach the screen where the requirements are given for the Task.

3. Make sure you identify them all and calculate the split of time/marks between each

SubTask.

4. Use what you are being asked to do in each SubTask as a subheading and type it in to

your answer space – this is the structure the marker will be looking for.

5. Now go back and read the unseen info you are provided with as part of the Task. Given

you know what the requirements are you now know what you are looking for as you read

through.

6. Make sure that you also consider “What is relevant in the preseen here?”

7. As you are reading, insert bullet points beneath your subheadings of the points that you

want to make. As a sensible rule of thumb you should aim for 2 marks per point, so use this

to calculate how many bullets you need beneath each subheading.

8. When you have populated your onscreen plan in the answer box, you can now return to the

first SubTask and start to turn your points into full sentences, remembering your role and

who the recipient is.

9. You are working for the real preseen company! You must make sure you relate your

answer to the company/industry as much as possible.

10. Keep an eye on the time for the Task as it ticks down. You MUST manage your time within

a Task to ensure you give a good response to each SubTask. If you miss the last one out

as you run out of time then you’ve just missed out on a sizable number of marks of the 100

available, and potentially a large proportion of those available for an individual competency.