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• I was most interested to read the articles by Frank Lewsey and Geoff Hadwick on the subject of the Certificate of Professional Competence in your May 30, 1987 issue.
As the director of a professional transport institute the majority of whose members are very much involved with the need for operators' licences, I must point out that we very jealously guard the considerable privilege given to us whereby corporate members ("Associate Members' and above) are exempt from having to sit the examination necessary for the granting of a CPC (National and International). "Associates" of this Institute are also granted this exemption, but they must have passed or been exempt from all the Institute's graduate and corporate examinations.
Two other points concern me on reading Geoff Hadwick's well-researched article. Firstly, his statement that among the multiple choice answers he always found "one blatantly, howlingly wrong response". Even if the other choices available looked correct, then surely the validity of the examination and thus the status of the CPC is suspect. if by a process of elimination one can reduce the choice of answers then the candidate who does not know the answer and is forced to guess, has a significantly better chance of guessing right and thereby gaining his operators licence under false pretences.
The second point concerns Geoff Hadwick's warning to "Beware of the trick question". The setting of "trick questions" has been outlawed for years by all reputable examination authorities and the use of such a device within an important examination even if it is a test of memory is both irresponsible and unfair.
Multi-choice examinations are easy to set and even easier to mark. However, I would seriously question their justification for determining the Level of professional knowledge of a candidate seeking to gain "a passport to managing a haulage business today" to use Mr Hadwick's words. The point made in your editorial that "knowing the right answer to a multiple choice question in an exam is no guarantee to business success" is well founded and it is for this reason that my institute places no such emphasis within its examination syllabus on business and management studies within the transport industry. You will need more than memory and I can promise you no multi-choice questions. However, having sat and passed our examinations and advanced within the IoTA grading system, you will certainly be far better qualified to run a transport business and exempt from the CPC examination into the bargain. P F Green Director Institute of Transport Administration, Southampton