Procedures for the Part A Membership Examinations

After the Examination

Extenuating Circumstances
If a candidate strongly believes that adverse circumstances have affected their examination performance or revision period, this information may be brought to the attention of the Board of Examiners. The Board of Examiners, however, can give only limited weight to this information. The Extenuating Circumstances Form [PDF] must be completed and returned to the Education Department within three days of taking the examination.

Results
Examination results will be sent first class and marked "private and confidential" within 2-3 days of the Executive Examiners' meeting. Examination results will not be given over the telephone. Results are not posted up in the Faculty premises. From January 2002, all candidates who are unsuccessful in the examination will receive feedback on their performance in the form of marks, as well as the question key points and examiners' general comments for that examination sitting.

Banking
Contingent upon a report from the Chair of Examiners, it was agreed by the Education and Faculty Advisors' Committee on 29th January 2004 to allow the "banking" of papers at Part I. The proposal was ratified by the Board on 11th February 2004. It had been addressed in previous years but was now considered to be feasible due to the current structure of the examination, since knowledge and skills are more explicitly separated between Papers I and II. The proposal sets forth that:-

  • Candidates should continue to take both parts (papers) of the examination at the same sitting, unless a paper has been banked previously

  • Assuming failure in the examination, an individual paper (I or II) may be banked only when it has been passed and only when an overall score of 100/200 or more has been attained in the examination as a whole

    There will be no change in the examination fees for sittings of individual papers

    A candidate will only be considered for a prize for examination performance at their first sitting of the examination

    Candidates who succeed in banking a paper at a particular sitting must then use up their remaining number of allowable attempts by presenting themselves for the remaining paper at each subsequent sitting of the examination. Candidates will ordinarily be allowed no more than four attempts at either part of the Part I exam except at the discretion of the Education/Faculty Advisers' Committee. For this purpose, attempts at Part I of the examination for Membership of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland will be counted. Permission to exceed four attempts will be granted only on evidence that the candidate is likely to succeed at a subsequent attempt

    Candidates who manage to bank one of the Part I exam papers at the 4th attempt will be allowed one further attempt at the paper that they failed

Banking will be implemented from the January 2005 sitting of the examination.

 

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