The City & Guilds of London Institute administer the RAE on behalf of the Radio Communications Agency. The examination can be taken at local colleges and examination centres throughout the UK normally during May and December. A list of such centres is available from the City & Guilds at a nominal charge, as are the regulations, syllabus and objectives. The latter are given in Appendix 3 of this book, and practical multiple-choice questions in Appendix 4.
The current RAE consists of a single paper of 80 multiple-choice questions. This broken down into two sections Part A, 25 questions, and Part B, 55 questions. The former are about Licensing Conditions and Operating Procedures, while the latter tests Principles and Practice of simple electronics, see Appendix 4.
The examination follows standard examination practice. You will be required to arrive at the examination centre some minutes before the official start time. You will be given a few minutes to read through the instructions given on the front cover of the exam questions book. These instructions must be read carefully as they give specific instructions on how to fill in the two answer sheets, one having provision for Part A answers and the other for Part B answers.
All rough workings must be done in the question book and not on the answer sheets. You will not be allowed to remove the questions book after the examination, this must be handed in at the end of the examination.
Standard examination advice always suggests reading through the entire question paper before putting pen to paper. Make a mental note of any questions you consider are easy to answer, and then having done a first read through go back to those questions and answer them first. This will give your confidence a considerable lift and make the rest of the paper that much easier.
Try to leave about ten minutes at the end in order to provide time to read through your answers and make any changes you feel necessary.
The City and Guilds of London Institute, 1 Giltspur Street, London, EC1A 9DD
Telephone:020 7294 2468 Fax:020 7294 2400