Month: May 2020

A feature of this blog will be occasional presentations of multiple choice questions, with solutions and feedback. We begin by offering MCQs for L4M2, M3 and M4, but will add to this over the coming weeks and months. For those who are not familiar with the Profex Study Packs, you should be aware that each Pack ends with a chapter of such questions for practice ahead of the ‘live’ exam.

We would welcome feedback from readers who have already sat exams at Level 4. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the mini-scenarios in the live exams are more complicated than those shown in the above attachment. We have also heard reports that this leads to difficulties in relation to timing – it seems that some candidates are running out of time to complete all questions. Please feel free to share with us your experience of the exams, either on this blog, or direct to choyvfuvat@cebsrk.pb.hx. This will help us to improve our offering to you in future.

Profex is of course a significant competitor of CIPS in the field of publishing (needless to say, our books are just much better!) Despite that, we won’t usually get involved in anything critical or confrontational. This first post, though, is an exception.

It is provoked by a comment on a Facebook Level 4 discussion group, in which someone signing in as ‘CIPS Africa’ states that the CIPS Study Guides are more closely aligned to the exam syllabus than the Profex Study Packs. This casual assertion is so very far from the truth that we could not let it pass unanswered.

But don’t take our word for it: for an impartial view on this, see these articles from the owner/director of a UK Centre of Excellence:

Buying a Study Guide? Caveat Emptor! (Part 1)

Buying a Study Guide? Caveat Emptor (Part 2)

We at Profex may not always get it right, but as you can see, we do at least make the effort!

CIPS should come clean on this:

• Are the Study Guides a standalone exam aid, so we don’t have to read any other books and we can be sure that all exam questions are covered? That’s what Profex aim for, however imperfectly.
• Or are the official guides not intended to cover all examinable topics?

CIPS students are professional procurement specialists and they are entitled to honest product information before they make their purchasing decisions.

Hello everyone, and welcome to this new feature of the Profex website: our blog.

The aim is to post two or three times a week, the subject matter being anything related to studying, taking exams, using your textbooks, and perhaps occasional tutorial help.

This might include an Objective Response question with solution and feedback, a brief explanation of a technical point that causes difficulties to learners, a note on a recent real-world development that could be used in the exam room … or anything else that you, the readers, would like to see. We encourage you to comment as freely as you wish.