Look at the following facts very carefully if you think that old marketing ploy of 'guaranteeing' exams sounds like a benefit to the student:

It's become essential these days that we're a little bit more aware of sales ploys - and generally we realise that of course we're actually paying for it (it isn't free or out of the goodness of their hearts!) Evidence shows that when trainees fund their own exams, one after the other, they will be much more likely to get through on the first attempt - because they'll think of their payment and so will prepare more thoroughly.

Doesn't it make more sense to go for the best offer when you take the exam, not to pay any mark-up to the college, and to take it closer to home - rather than in some remote centre? A surprising number of questionable training colleges net big margins through getting in the money for all the exam fees up-front and hoping you won't see them all through. Re-takes of previously unsuccessful exams with training companies who offer an 'Exam Guarantee' inevitably are heavily regulated. You will be required to do mock exams till you've proven conclusively that you can pass.

Splashing out often many hundreds of pounds extra on an 'Exam Guarantee' is naive - when a commitment to studying and the use of authorised exam preparation tools is what will really guarantee success.

Students often end up having issues because of one area of their training usually not even thought about: The way the training is divided into chunks and delivered to your home. Normally, you will purchase a course staged over 2 or 3 years and get sent one module each time you pass an exam. This sounds logical on one level, until you consider this: How would they react if you didn't complete each element within the time limits imposed? And maybe you'll find their order of completion doesn't come as naturally as another different route may.

The ideal solution is to have all the learning modules posted to you right at the start; the whole caboodle! This way, nothing can happen down the line which could affect your capability of finishing.

If you're like many of the students we talk to then you're quite practically minded - a 'hands-on' personality type. If you're like us, the trial of reading reference books and manuals is something you'll force on yourself if you absolutely have to, but you'd hate it. Check out video-based multimedia instruction if books just don't do it for you. Where we can utilise all of our senses into our learning, then we often see hugely increased memory retention as a result.

Interactive audio-visual materials utilising video demo's and practice lab's will turn you off book-based study for ever more. And they're a lot more fun to do. Don't take any chances and look at a small selection of training examples before you sign on the dotted line. The minimum you should expect would be instructor-led video demonstrations and audio-visual elements backed up by interactive lab's.

You'll find that many companies will only provide just online versions of their training packages; sometimes you can get away with this - but, think what will happen if you lose your internet access or you get a slow connection speed. It's much safer to rely on actual CD or DVD ROMs which will not have these problems.

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