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GENERAL
As mentioned by many examiners before, it remains an issue that candidates are
not able to identify the core issues and succinctly provide a well thought through
answer. The stressful exam conditions clearly play a role, but such an
environment is not necessarily that different from the difficult and stressful
environments in which company secretaries often have to operate in many
cases having to provide opinions on their feet and having to be able to provide
clear, but to the point views on the scenarios very similar to those portrayed in
the paper.
Many students still do not present answers in the requested format. Company
secretaries are often requested to present opinions in a specific format and the
first impression of a memo / report / policy often contributes to the perceived
image of the quality of the work, as well as the quality / skills / expertise of the
individual. The questions are therefore asked in such a way not only to give
students marks for free, but to entrench the skill to enable the students to be
more effective in practice. The format marks are also really for free as it is very
easy to get the marks allocated purely for format in a few cases the format
marks would have meant the difference between a pass and a fail.
It might be easy to say as examiner, but I felt this was a very reasonable and
very practical paper. In at least 2 of the questions, the students could have
achieved a pass mark by purely referring to the act, which all had as a resource,
thus equating to almost an open book exam for a number of the questions at
least 50% of question 2 and 3, as well as 20-30% of questions 4 and 5.
The fact that the students were not able to even find the basic references in the
act, is a major concern, because it means that the students are unable to identify
how to find an answer to an unknown question: this is a basic requirement and
should not be an issue at board level.
Many questions specifically indicated that companies were not listed yet students
dwelled on JSE requirements this is an unnecessary waste of time and poses
the question of whether the student is merely writing everything he knows about
the subject in a hope to hit the bulls-eye somewhere in-between, instead of
answering the question. More disconcerting was that certain students referred to
(Pty) Ltd companies as listed and therefore referencing JSE requirements it is
a concern if students are not even able to distinguish different types of
companies and that Private companies are definitely NOT listed.
Some questions were extensive in nature and required succinct to the point
answers e.g. question 7: instead of students just naming the rules applicable to
JSE listed companies, they spent too much time listing various types of listing
requirements, instead of just naming the group of rules, thus resulting in some
students not being able to finish on time. Many students also spent too much
time on non value-adding information, again affecting their ability to answer all
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