CTA Exam Tips Archives

Key Elements of the Exam Group

July 24, 2019 By Jane Williams

We wanted to create a focussed and supportive learning culture that would be successful in helping people in their preparation for CTA. From our own experiences we have developed the following key elements to be part of the our Exam Preparation Group:

Calibration

One of the early tasks of the group will be to help each member to calibrate where they are against the EATA competences that are being assessed through the exam process. This will happen in a variety of ways including playing and talking to tapes, talking theory, engaging in mock exams. Working together to establish where you are in your readiness, what the gaps may be and what learning and development needs to take place; both in and outside of the group to be ready for exam.

Getting on with it – setting goals and getting support in meeting them

From the outset you will be encouraged in setting goals for what you want to achieve in the group, based on how you are calibrating yourself. There will be regular discussion of progress towards the goals and support in how to meet them.

Dealing with myths, anxieties and knowing what is expected

This might not sound very exciting but understanding the exam process is important for candidates as it helps settle anxieties. So, we will be helping with this by providing a handbook/folder with the necessary documents compiled for each member of our group. These documents are all available from the EATA and UKATA websites, we are taking the task of pulling all this together to make it more straightforward. Along with some additional ideas from us, this will form the basis of your preparation for your CTA.

The Written Exam

There will be plenty of guidance on writing the CTA exam and opportunities to discuss the various sections and questions to be answered. We will look at approaches to writing, getting feedback on first drafts, final polishing. We will also look at questions like; who to choose as your case study client and the different sections A,B, C, and D.

Familiarisation, Practice and Coaching for the Oral Exam

Another key aspect of exam preparation is about getting familiar with the oral exam process. We think this has two main elements. Both what actually happens in the exam, the practicalities, and the process of the exam. We consider the process of the exam is about the experience for examiners and the candidate of being in an assessor/evaluator and assessee relationship and what is evoked in this experience. We see this as different to the types of questions that might be asked and the playing of tapes and talking to them. There will be opportunities to practice, experience and be coached on both these aspects through mock exams, practicing playing tapes and talking TA.

As a group we will spend time thinking about and talking about the process of the exam and what exam boards are like. Dispelling the myths and being comfortable talking about your work to colleagues.

If you would like to know more about the Exam Prep Group, please get in touch via email.

Supervision and Professional Development Days

November 24, 2015 By Jane Williams

We are really excited about our next new project here at TA Training Organisation. We are going to be offering a series of Supervision and Professional Development days over the next few months. The purpose of these new sessions is to offer professionals, both qualified and unqualified, the chance for transactional analysis supervision and continuing professional development.

A new venture

This is a new venture for Andy and me and comes out of a few over coffee discussions, as we have been talking to colleagues, supervisees and trainees, researching and reflecting on else we might support qualified counsellors, therapist and trainees in the Yorkshire area with interesting transactional analysis training and development.

We will run an open agenda day where the topics for the day together are decided by the group at the beginning of each day. This could be a mixture of classic supervision of client work, professional development issues, teaching of theory, personal process time, preparation for CTA or Diploma examinations and ethical and professional practice questions. The list goes on!

Here’s a typical example of what a day might comprise.

Topic	Main Training Room	Topic	Room 4
Group Introductions and agenda	Andy and Lin
Case Supervision	Andy	Ethics Discussion	Lin.
Morning break
Theory Teach on Personality Adaptations.	Andy and Lin
Case supervision	Andy	Case Supervision	Lin
Lunch
Diploma Exam discussion	Andy	Case supervision and tape	Lin
Discussion of contracting	Andy	Case Supervision
Afternoon break
Case Supervision	Andy	Mock CTA Exam	Lin.
Check out.	Andy and Lin.

With a small group (less than eight people) either Andy or I will take the group with 8 people or more and we will both be present.We take a list of topics and requests at the beginning of the day and then develop the programme. Attendees are welcome to attend whichever session they wish.

“Drop in”

These will be “drop in” groups, you can sign up for just one day or for the whole programme. Depending on the interest for the rest of this academic year we hope to run these sessions on an ongoing basis meeting once every two months for a day together.

We wanted to offer professionals not qualified in transactional analysis the opportunity of supervision and further development beyond the TA 101 and year one to support them in using transactional analysis in their practice with clients and to be supported in so doing and TA trainees will be able to count hours of supervision according to UKATA and EATA guidelines.

So, if you think this might be something you would like to experience the first session begins in the new year on Friday 5^th February, click here to go to more information, if you’d like to find out more please Contact Us with any questions. Or click on the dates below to go directly to Eventbrite and online booking.

Friday 5th February

Friday 15th April

Friday 10th June

Twelve Tips for Writing your CTA Exam

April 16, 2015 By Jane Williams

TWELVE TIPS FOR WRITING YOUR CTA EXAM

by Lin Cheung

I do quite a bit of writing these days – I write a couple of blogs, occasional short articles and of course, I also had the pleasure of discovering quite few ideas about how to write when I completed my CTA written exam. Here are some of the things I’ve learnt that I hope you will find helpful.
1. Choosing your client case. The person you choose does not have to be the most complex or difficult of your cases; they do need to be someone that you have worked with long enough to provide sufficient material and someone that you can be happy thinking about and writing about for about the next 12 months.

2. Understand the marking scheme and the core competencies. I think this is essential preparation; it will help you structure your answer and decide on content. Understanding how what you have written is going to be assessed will help you assess your own work. You may find it useful to do this step with your supervisor.

3. Have an overall plan for your writing. Sketch out the content in rough, perhaps with an outline of what key ideas and material you will cover in each of the sections. You can then build on this in the next stage once you have your structure together.

4. Understand that writing is different to editing. Editing as you go along and before you have all your ideas down in a draft is likely to make the process much harder than it need be and slow you down. So, once you have your outline structure together start by writing everything you want to cover. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t make complete sense, isn’t grammatically correct, or if you can’t think of a word or reference. At the draft stage my case study was full of things like “word that means”, “find a reference for this”, “go through tapes/notes to find supporting case material.” At the draft stage I think it’s important to capture the essence of your thinking and all of your ideas.

5. Once you are happy with your first draft, then you begin to edit. This is where you fill in all those gaps. You find those words that mean, check your references, include the transcripts and the case materials. You polish your text and check for grammar and typos.

6. As part of your editing process read it aloud. This will give you a different sense of your work and can help tremendously.

7. Getting stuck? Small chunk the whole thing and reframe it as series of short essays.

8. Celebrate each 1000 words.

9. I used to contract with myself to write 50 words, if I achieved the 50 words and didn’t want to write more, then I would finish. If I did want to continue to write, I would until I felt ready to stop.

10. Have back up copies of everything. You probably won’t need them but it will reduce your anxiety that something might go wrong with your equipment.

11. Take sections to supervision and read them out, get feedback along the way.

12. And lastly, have someone else proof read your final document as it’s difficult to accurately check something when we are very familiar with it.

And lastly my very best wishes for a successful written exam.