Is there yet a trend in the EQE results after the introduction of the pre-exam?

Joeri Beetz kindly provided the following overview:
We should be careful in basing conclusions on a small amount of data but arguably the full exam pass rate has not gone down after the pre-exam was introduced. In a few years time we may conclude that the pass rate has gone up by maybe 10%.  We'll see.

Comments

  1. "the full exam pass rate has not gone down " - perhaps "up" was intended?

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  2. I thought the purpose of the pre-exam was to reduce the numbers of candidates sitting the finals exams who weren't ready to do so, thereby reducing the burden on the markers because the pre-exam papers are machine-marked as opposed to the lengthy marking process for final exams (which has to be performed for even the poorest of papers)?

    Perhaps more-useful data would be the number of candidates sitting the final exams, particularly paper D, before and after introduction of the pre-exam

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  3. As I understood it, the pre-exam has been introduced in order to increase the success rates for D exam. However, if you compare the results e.g. 2016 and 2010 you can see that the rates are similar within error margin! in other words this small "improvement" does not justify the whole effort/money spent for the pre-exam.

    In addition to that the content of the Exam itself matters. For example, this year almost 80% of the questions are PCT related which I don't understand! At the end the primary goal is to "build" EP patent attorneys that usually have more than 70% of their work related to EPC/EPO. In previous exams; however, there was a fair balance between PCT and EPC questions. Having so much PCT related questions does not make sense. This may also explain the drop in the success rate compared to the last year.
    My 2 cents

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  4. How are the number calculated, i.e. how can the full exam pass rate (last row) be higher than the pass rate of the individual exams (the row above)?

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    1. I would guess because the full exam also takes the results of A and B into account, and the pass rates for those was higher :)

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    2. Maybe full pass rate applies only to people sitting all four exams while the pass rate of the individual exams includes serial resitters?

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    3. The paper pass rates are the percentages of all participants with 50+ marks.

      The full exam pass rates are the percentages of candidates who sat 4 papers and are now allowed to call themselves European Patent Attorney. So candidates (mainly re-sitters) making only 1-3 papers are excluded. Candidates with only 45 marks for C and D can still pass if they score enough marks for A and B.

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  5. I would appreciate if you can provide the average number of marks (e.g for D exam) obtained ONLY by the persons who have passed the full exam over the same period? This would give us a hint on the "passing" quality before and after the pre-exam era.

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    1. pre-pre-exam (2010-2012): 64, 59, 62
      pre-exam (2013-2016): 66, 65, 65, 62

      Calculated because I can. But I don't know if this is really useful information.

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    2. thank you very much; I apprecite that! of course is useful. I would have expected a more significant incarease in the average number of marks because 1)the pre-exam 2) advanced methods for procesing the exam have been developed/improved e.g. by DeltaPatent.

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  6. My personal experience with pre-exam.
    I believe that pre-exam is useful.
    Indeed pre-exam requires to study at least arguments relating to Papers A/B/D (in pre-exam paper C is less important, according to my opinion).
    When I studied for per-exam I prepared the legal part in the same way as if I had to sit for paper D (visser / delta patents book for pre-exam + delta patents book for paper D / G decisions / PCT / etc.). I passed pre-exam with good results.
    Next year I attended paper A/B/C/D and for paper D I had only to review my preparation so that I found it easier to prepare in deep papers A/B/C
    Unfortunatly, due to my mistake, I absolutely underestimated the difficulty of paper C (I studied all by my self without any specific course using past years papers and delta patents book for papers A/B/C/D). I really did not realize the diffuculty grade for paper C so that I passed only papers A/B/D and failed paper C (which I attended this year getting a compensable grade, but it's ok).
    For me the worst things in this exam (apart from needing to study in deep so many different things in so many different books that according to my opinion is anyway needed to get enought knowledge to work as EP attorney) are:
    - paper waste: each year you need to update the documents to be used, printing again a lot of pages (usually working and studing you don't have time to waste in updating only what is strictly necessary so that you simply print it all again !!!)
    - time pressure: during exam (for me expecially for paper C) you don't have enough time to think on what you are doing so you have to choose between think on what you are doing but accept not to finish all the paper and hope that making no mistake you will anyway pass (I used this approch for paper C because I wanted not to make any mistake in the first part of analysis because a mistake in this part can be a disaster for the second part of the attacks) OR write and write and write as fast as you can without thinking a lot but just going through fast pre-arranged references that allow you to rapidly find support to the answer you believe is correct (I used this approch for paper D).

    Both these aspect for me make no sense.

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  7. I have not needed to participate pre. But I have done because failing always. Now I always fail Pre. What can I do?

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  8. Where is the eqe online Forum?

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  9. According to the EPO:

    "The EQE wiki and forum pages of the European Patent Academy have been discontinued"

    Pity...

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    1. In addition, the booklet "National law relating to the EPC", which is necessary to tackle paper D, is available online only as HTML version that you cannot bring with you at Exam.

      The "corresponding" pdf file is obsolete; the paper version is not available anymore.

      So you have only an option: you have to download a more than 300 page obsolete pdf file, print it and then update it manually.


      Is that part of a policy for making the Eqe exam harder and harder or simply the EPO does not care anymore of EQE candidates?

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    2. can be ordered without costs online...

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