Learning Outcome Statements

A week ago today the 2009 L.O.S. were released. I don’t know if I ever mentioned it before, but the los stands for learning outcome statement and they are the key to passing the exam. Long story short, the LOS tell you what you need to do to pass. I’ll give an example. The institute tells you to read chapter 4 in a particular book. That chapter has a section that goes over 3 different ways of computing an average (this actually happened to me). One might assume that means you have to be able to compute an average using all 3 methods. However, the LOS might only say that you need to compare the 3 methods. That means you have to know how they relate to each other and some other aspects, but you won’t have to compute or calculate unless they say so. In the long term, if definitely focuses studying in various areas. There are entire reading where you can get bogged down in memorizing when they want you to understand concepts, and times when you can focus so much on the concepts that you forget you are just supposed to memorize a list.

However, this list isn’t really for me yet. I haven’t gotten back the 2008 results, so I don’t know which test I’ll be taking. The list is released early because there are some people who may not have taken the 08 exam but who already know what exam they’ll be taking in 09. The LOS however are totally useless without the list of the readings. If the LOS says know formula X, they mean the formula listed in the readings. If you get it from some other source there are enough small differences over time that you would find it impossible to pass. I’m not in any rush to get into the material, but I did read through the level 3 LOS. I have heard some people say the level 2 is harder, and it might be true for me based on the LOS. The hard part for me was the calculations and number of formulas, but there are very few level 3 LOS that say compute or calculate. There is still plenty of reading to go over though. I don’t plan on getting fully into the studying until September or October, so I won’t be reading any more LOS at least until the results come out. We are down to 1 month remaining.