From the exam lead writer
The next IPEd accreditation exam takes place in August 2026, but the exam writing team will start work in September 2025. With a team of 6 based across 2 countries and different states, and a complex, multi-part exam to develop, this 11-month timeframe is essential. This article outlines the process behind the exam’s creation.
The writers are all Accredited Editors, meaning they’ve experienced the exam as candidates. The team is divided into 2 sub-teams, one responsible for developing the Manuscript part of the exam, the other tasked with developing the Knowledge part.
The Manuscript sub-team’s task is to create a 4-page extract for copyediting. They choose a topic that is generally approachable, avoiding specialised content areas so as not to advantage or disadvantage any candidates. The writers pepper the text with a range of opportunities for candidates to demonstrate copyediting skills, including errors in syntax, grammar, spelling, punctuation, heading structure and word choice. Some ambiguities and inconsistencies are deliberately included as “fodder” for the author queries that candidates must raise. And the writers build in elements for candidates to add to their all-important style sheet. The extract goes through many drafts during its development.
In the Knowledge part, candidates demonstrate their understanding of the principles, practices and conventions of the editing profession. The 6 questions correspond to parts A to E of the IPEd standards for editing practice (see Resources for the Knowledge part of the exam for more details). The Knowledge sub-team works to develop a set of clear, effective tests of candidates’ knowledge in these areas, using a range of question types including multiple choice, short answer and matching, as well as short editing tasks. Because candidates may use different style guides, the writers take care to ensure the question content is valid across the recommendations of any particular guide.
As the writers create the questions, they also develop the answer guides for each part of the exam. These are big documents, designed to be a comprehensive resource for the markers. Mindful that there’s often more than one way to answer a question or resolve an editing issue, the writers include as many model answers and variations as they can. In 2024, the answer guide for M part had 44 pages; for K part, 55 pages; for L part, 14 pages.
Once the Manuscript and Knowledge sub-teams have drafted their respective parts, the parts are circulated within the team: the Manuscript sub-team reviews and gives feedback on the Knowledge part; the Knowledge sub-team does the same for the Manuscript part. Questions that include content relating to a marginalised group may be reviewed externally – under confidentiality protocols – by an editor from that marginalised group, if the writing team does not include someone from that group.
All team members contribute questions for the Language part, which mainly consists of sentences with errors needing correction, featuring issues that editors encounter in their everyday practice.
The exam documents and answer guides need to be ready in time for the trial exam, normally held about 3 months before the exam date. At this dry run, a handful of Accredited Editor volunteers sit the exam under exam conditions, and then their papers are marked. The trial exam generates valuable feedback for the writers, both from the trial candidates, via a survey they complete after sitting the exam, and from the markers, whose scrutiny of the papers may uncover flaws in the questions, or alternative answers. The writing team responds to this feedback, honing the exam documents and answer guides.
In fact, the answer guides are a “living” resource in that they may be amended or augmented during the marking period for the exam itself, for example if a marker reports that a candidate has come up with an unanticipated but sound answer. The writing team stays active through to the end of marking.
It’s a meticulous and exhaustive 11-month process, all aimed at providing candidates with a comprehensive, fair exam that allows them to demonstrate their knowledge and skills measured against the IPEd standards for editing practice.