Knowledge Train’s PRINCE2 examination results (2012)

With 2012 being the busiest for Knowledge Train in the 7 years since we started, I thought it would be helpful for those people who are looking to gain PRINCE2 accreditation during 2013 to review our exam performance during 2012.

Despite 2012 being a strange year – the Queen’s Jubilee, a royal wedding, and of course, not only one, but two Olympic games to contend with in London, our trainers have been busy helping hundreds of students gain their precious PRINCE2 certificates.

In all, we had more than 750 students sit their PRINCE2 Foundation exam with us and more than 700 students sit their Practitioner exam. I’m pleased to tell you that our pass rate during 2012 for students who took a PRINCE2 classroom course with us (i.e. not just sitting an exam) was 99% for Foundation and 85% for Practitioner (where students attended our 5 day Foundation & Practitioner course). This is well above the national average pass rate of 97% and 73% respectively.

I’ve been busy this last week compiling a breakdown of the distribution of marks scored by students in the exams and these can be seen in the graphs below. The first graph shows the 1% of students who failed to obtain the required Foundation pass mark which is 35 marks out of 70. 24% of students achieved marks of between 35 and 50 whilst more than half of students scored between 51 and 60 marks. A further 23% of students scored more than 61 marks (more than 87%) so these students deserve extra special praise! The average Foundation exam score was 55 marks out of 70 (78%).

For Practitioner, the graph below shows that 15% of students failed to gain enough marks to pass (i.e. they scored less than 59 marks). Many of those who failed, only failed by a few marks, often just by one or two marks. Of the 85% who did pass, one third of students scored between 59 and 70 marks. A further 28% of students gained between 71 and 80 marks and 20% managed to score between 81 and 90 marks. The top students (4% of the total) managed to score 91 marks or more, with two students this year scoring 100 marks (out of a total of 108).

As the lead PRINCE2 trainer at Knowledge Train I’m particularly satisfied by these results which are a testimony to the hard work, dedication, and above all, the exceptional expertise of our PRINCE2 trainers. However, we don’t like to rest on our laurels so we’re in the process of improving our PRINCE2 training courses and materials so that we can our students to achieve even better results in 2013. Not only will our course materials be updated soon to reflect some recent changes in the syllabus, but we will be re-developing our pre-course study materials which will allow our students to study using different media, for example by podcasts. So, look out for our coming announcements on our blog.