The CII J07 October 2018 Exam in Review

Next in line for our past paper analysis is the CII J07, Supervision in a regulated environment exam. This review of the question paper from October will help you to highlight areas that will need more focussed revision.

You can find the latest exam – October 2018 – by using this link.

As with the other written Diploma in Financial Planning papers, two hours are given to answer 15 short-answer questions for a total of 130 marks.

Question 1 tested knowledge on an overseer; a brief explanation of the role was needed, along with the main exceptions from the T & C rules that apply to them.

The next question was on a management style within the Hersey and Blanchard situational leadership model, including four examples of approaches that could be used to apply that style.

The exam continued with organisation barriers a CEO might face when proposing a significant change to business strategy along with recommendations to address them.

Question 4 tested the strategies within the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument.

Candidates then had to explain, for 10 marks, the key information that a firm needs to collect as part of an application process for an approved person.

Question 6 was on the role of business conferences as a method of communication and candidates had to state the advantages and the disadvantages with the question overall giving 8 marks.

Validation of learning was up next and 6 marks were on offer to state two appropriate methods to validate sales training learning along with the advantages of each them.

Question 8 was around coaching approaches for a total of 9 marks for the whole question.

We then had a question testing mandatory and desirable actions that must be demonstrated by an adviser at the initial contact stages with a client; this question gave 10 marks in total.

The next question was on verification requirements and the risk of doing business with someone who had recently moved to the UK having previously been a member of the Danish parliament.

The exam continued with the key elements of effective management information for 7 marks.

Onto the final stretch, and the next two questions included talent management and ISO 22222.  The penultimate question tested what should happen once an employee is suspected of committed fraud against the company and finally Question 15 tested the Human Rights Act 1999 with an explanation needed of three rights that employers must consider to comply with the legislation.

As you can see, it was a mixed bag of different areas from the syllabus.

Comparison with April 2018’s Paper

If we compare this to the April 2018 paper, we can see that this covered the following topics:

• Direct supervision
• Scouller’s leadership model
• Meeting styles
• Customer complaints
• Induction plans and areas of competence for new advisers
• Competency-based interviews
• Learning styles and appropriate training approaches
• Development plans
• Coaching styles
• Observed meetings
• Key performance indicators
• FCA Principles for Businesses directly impacting the sales process
• Disciplinary and misconduct
• Wrongful dismissal

The range of topics is wide, and as you can see, they did vary between the two papers in 2018.

However, any student should look back to earlier papers to help them with the types of question being asked as well as the topics that have been tested before.

The pass rate for J07 in 2017 was 48.51% – one of the lowest pass rates for the J papers (second from the bottom – only just beating J11 at 46.94%).  We do, however, see an improvement in the pass rate for 2018, with 53.26% of candidates passing this exam.

Grab the resources you need!

If you’re studying for your CII J07 exam, and you want to be fully prepared, grab our free taster to try out one of Brand Financial Training’s resources for yourself.  Click the link to download the J07 mock paper taster now!