Pros and Cons of hiring a tutor to help you with your police exam
>>> Tutorial lessons at the bottom of this post! <<<
Hi, it’s Russell here from Prime Motion Training. We’re often asked whether or not we offer one-on-one tutoring to help applicants prepare for their entrance exam and I just wanted to discuss some of the pros and cons of tutoring.
There’s actually a number of options that you could look at to get some help for the entrance exam. Firstly ACER who conducts the entrance exam on Victoria Police’s behalf hasare an information booklet and there are some practise questions in that booklet that you could take a look at. Now you’ve probably already done that and as you’ll know there are answers to the questions but no explanations and so it’s a good indication of what you’re in for in terms of the exam but it doesn’t really teach you anything. It’s not all that helpful in regards to helping you improve your preparation for the exam.
Now there are also TAFE courses that you can take a look at. They typically charge anywhere from $400 to $500 to go and sit in a classroom with other applicants and actually take some lessons about content that be in the entrance exam. Now one of the issues with that, although it’s live, and in person, one of the issues is that the course has to finish within the allocated time and it’s difficult to go back over things that you might be having trouble with. Each individual within that course will have their own individual challenges that they’d like to spend some more time going over. And so there are some limitations in that regard. Now our system is quite different to sitting in a classroom or even sitting down with a private tutor, what I’ve done is to take all of the individual components of the entrance exam and record some really comprehensive video tutorial-style lessons.
So if you were sitting opposite the table with me and we’re all going through a tutoring session together, exactly the same thing that I would teach in person I’ve taught via video lesson. With those lessons, you’ll be able to go back over each of them and have a look at them as many times as necessary until the formulas sink in until the steps in the processes sink in. When we’re learning anything that we have to have that repetition and I think that’s where the video tutorial lessons really come into their own and coming to their strength. You can pause the video, go back over sections, you can watch the entire lesson again, and then do the practice based on what’s taught in the lessons. Now there are other resources that we use in conjunction with the video lessons.
There are practice questions to use the skills that you’ve just learned about as well as the practice exams. Now our online practise exams are set up exactly the same way as the Victoria Police entrance exam. So the number of questions that you showed in that particular component, that time limits, that pass marks the difficulty level of the questions, they’re all as close as you can possibly get to do the real Victoria Police entrance exam. So that’s a really comprehensive resource. I think if you looked at the option of getting a private tutor, the experience I’ve had with other applicants in the past is that they go off and get a tutor and it could be anything from $60 an hour, right up to $140 an hour. I’ve even had a couple of examples of more than that. The problem is you spend the first few sessions actually educating the tutor about the Victoria Police entrance exam.
Of course, that’s great for the tutor as it’s on their time. They’ll be able to teach you mathematical equations and how to work them out or how to structure writing tasks, etc.. But they’re going to need that context. They’re going to need to understand what’s required in the exam that relates specifically to the Victoria Police entrance exam, you spend the first couple of sessions educating the tutor about what you’re trying to prepare for and that time can really quickly add up. Now, of course, if you’re struggling with something and you want to get back over those lessons again, then naturally you need to book further sessions and pay an hourly rate to go back over the same material that you could be going back over again simply by watching a tutorial video.
Now keeping in mind, we provide support to all of our members, so if you got stuck on something, you can always put your hand up and ask for direction. Now although it doesn’t include that one on one personal tutoring. It certainly does include support and we can help you identify where you might be going wrong. Now probably the last thing that’s worth mentioning is that I’ve had a number of scenarios over the years where applicants have been unsuccessful with their first attempt at the entrance exam and they feel the best solution is to find a personal tutor. They do a few sessions, they end up then becoming a member and getting access to our practise exams and our tutorial lessons and of course doing it that way has cost them more money than it needs to.
A good approach, in my opinion, is to take advantage of all of the content, the lessons that video tutorials the resources the practise exams that we have inside our membership, and often just one month as a member will give you access to all of that, which is equivalent to maybe a couple of tutorial sessions, but again, you’ll have access to all of those things for an entire month rather than just lesson by lesson and once you’ve been through the course for the entrance exam and you’ve gone through all the tutorial lessons and filled in any gaps that you might be struggling with only at that point at the very end, if there were still maybe one or two little elements that you are still not quite sure about and still need some extra help with, only then would you go and pay an hourly rate for a tutor to help you. Another advantage of doing it that way is that when you do approach a tutor, you don’t need to educate them about anything.
You can go to them with some very specific instructions. Here are some questions that I’m having trouble with. These are the exact questions that I need help with. Here’s the time limit that I have to do them. He a number of questions I’ve got to complete within that time limit. You can be really specific about what it is that you need from that tutor, which will be helpful for them. Because they can tune in very quickly to your requirements and in one or two tutoring sessions is usually enough to knock off those last couple of problems that you might be having. So I suggest that you look at the tutoring lessons, look at our exam entrance course. Do that first. If at the end is still a couple of problems, then maybe have a look at hiring a tutor for a couple of lessons just to knock those last couple of things on the head. Again, keep in mind that I’m here to support you as you go through those lessons and to guide you and point you in the right direction if you get stuck.
Now, probably the very last thing to mention is that of course, as a member, you’ll get access to training for every single step in the application process. So once you get through the exam we’ll be out to help you prepare for the video interview, the fitness testing, the psychological interview as well as the selection panel interview. So all of those things we can help you with and with our membership, if you’re on the monthly membership, you can access all of that content for as long as you want to. If at any stage you decide you didn’t need to be a member anymore, you can simply cancel the membership.
Alright, well I hope you have found that helpful. If you have any questions about this issue, please feel free to reach out and contact me. Happy to answer any questions that you might have. Alrighty, thanks for listening. Good luck with your exam.
