You can appeal a fail result on two grounds only: an error in the marking or grading of your paper, or a problem with the wording or translation of a question that adversely affected your result. The deadline is 14 calendar days from receiving the result. Connectivity and equipment problems are excluded and belong to special consideration instead.

Three routes exist in total and they are not interchangeable. A reasonable adjustment is asked for before the course and changes how you sit. Special consideration is claimed after the sitting, when something outside your control affected you. An appeal challenges a decision already made.

Which route is yours: appeal, special consideration or reasonable adjustment for the CQI IRCA exam?

Tell your training provider the moment you know. Whoever files the form, your provider holds your registration and your result, and nothing moves without it.

The three policies described here — reasonable adjustment, special consideration and appeals — are CQI and IRCA’s, and are issued to you with the examination policies before the course. Ask your provider for them if you have not had them.

The mistake that costs people both routes

A candidate whose broadband failed mid-paper reads the appeal grounds, sees “appeal against a fail result”, and spends the fortnight preparing one. It is refused, because connectivity is excluded from that ground outright. By then the special consideration deadline has gone.

That is the wrong way round. The appeal route excludes connectivity and hardware categorically. Special consideration excludes them only where the problem arose from not complying with CQI’s published requirements. So special consideration was always the better of the two — and if your set-up met CQI’s published IT requirements, the exclusion does not apply to you at all. Whether it bites is a question of evidence rather than of category, which is a reason to put the facts to your provider quickly rather than to give up.

How to appeal a CQI IRCA ISO 27001 exam decision

CQI and IRCA describe an appeal as considering whether the correct policies and processes have been followed and applied fairly. That framing matters: an appeal is not opened by disagreeing with your score.

There are three grounds.

• Against a fail result — but only where an error occurred in the marking or grading of your paper, or there is an issue with the wording or translation of one or more questions that adversely affected the result.
• Against a malpractice decision.
• Against a reasonable adjustment or special consideration decision.

An appeal is submitted with the appeals submission form and supporting evidence within 14 calendar days of receiving the result or the decision. There are three grounds but four processing times, because the third ground splits:

Your appeal is reviewed by a senior member of CQI staff who has not previously been involved in the case and has no personal interest in the outcome. On a malpractice appeal, the reviewer considers on the balance of probabilities whether there was sufficient evidence. The review is final: no further appeals are accepted.

One thing people look for and will not find: nothing in the published policies describes a script review, a remark on request, or any way to see your answers. The only route that touches the marking of your paper is an appeal, and it opens only on an error in the marking or grading or a problem with a question’s wording or translation. If that matters to you, ask your provider whether anything else exists rather than assuming it does.

Special consideration for the CQI IRCA ISO 27001 exam: after the sitting

Special consideration applies where your performance was significantly affected by an unexpected or temporary illness, injury or indisposition, or by an event outside your control — a bereavement shortly before the sitting, a serious disturbance during it.

What it does not cover is the part most often misread:

• Unexpected events that did not fall near the day of the examination.
• Issues caused by your own actions, including hardware, software or internet problems arising from not complying with CQI’s published requirements.
• Insufficient preparation, including not attending all of the course or not completing all its requirements.

Two limits are worth knowing before you spend a fortnight on an application. A mark adjustment is capped at 5 per cent of the total marks available — on an 80-mark paper that is four marks. And CQI states that a learner with a low mark will not have their marks adjusted to such an extent that they move from a fail to a pass. Four marks is the ceiling, so a score below 36 cannot reach 40 arithmetically whatever happens; between 36 and 39 an adjustment could in principle close the gap, but CQI’s own wording is aimed at not lifting low marks over the line. Treat it as a remedy for a narrow miss.

A free resit is a narrower remedy than it sounds. It is offered only where a significant technical problem with CQI’s own assessment system impaired the sitting. Problems with learner equipment or internet connections are not considered for it.

One interaction catches people: a learner who has already received a reasonable adjustment is not entitled to special consideration for the same circumstances. You cannot claim special consideration for the difficulty an adjustment was granted for. An unrelated event on the day is a different matter and is not barred by it.

The deadline is 14 calendar days from the result being issued to your training provider, and CQI processes applications within 10 UK working days. Note that start point: the clock begins when your provider receives the result, which can be before you hear anything. How long results take covers what to do about that.

What evidence to gather for a CQI IRCA exam appeal, and when

Every route asks for supporting evidence, and none of the policies lists what qualifies. What each circumstance implies is not hard to work out, and it is worth collecting on day one rather than day twelve: a bereavement suggests a death certificate or an order of service; an illness or injury suggests a dated medical record from around the sitting; a disturbance suggests a dated incident report, or a written and dated statement from someone who was there. An account with nothing behind it is the weakest version of any of the three.

Write down what happened while you remember it, on the day if you can. A contemporaneous note is worth more than a reconstruction a fortnight later.

Reasonable adjustment for the CQI IRCA ISO 27001 exam: ask before the course

A reasonable adjustment reduces the effect of a disability or difficulty that would otherwise place a learner at a substantial disadvantage in an online examination. It changes the conditions of your sitting, not what is being assessed. Examples CQI and IRCA give:

• Thirty minutes of extra time, where English is not your first language or where a learner has a learning disability. It is the adjustment most 3FOLD TRAINING learners are eligible for, so it has a page of its own.
• A reader. CQI’s assessment system supports the NVDA and JAWS screen readers.
• A female proctor to verify identification and review the proctoring recording. The example CQI gives is a female Muslim learner requesting one on religious grounds.
• An extended schedule where a learner cannot sit inside the 30-day window that follows the course — illness is the example given. This is also the published answer for a learner about to run out of window.

An adjustment is assessed, not granted on request. It will not be approved where it would involve unreasonable cost or timeframes, affect the security or integrity of the examination, or give an unfair advantage. Supporting medical evidence may be required.

CQI processes requests within two UK working days. Raise it before the course starts, which is the published route. And one thing worth knowing before you decide whether to disclose: CQI retains records of all reasonable adjustment requests and outcomes for five years.

Who submits what

Which form goes where differs by route, and getting it wrong costs a fortnight. A reasonable adjustment is submitted by your training provider: for extra time on language grounds it notifies CQI with your registration details, and for everything else it completes a reasonable adjustments request form. Special consideration uses a special consideration request form and an appeal uses an appeals submission form, each with supporting evidence, through CQI’s online request route. What the policies do not say is whether you or your provider files those two. So tell your provider immediately either way, ask it to confirm who is submitting, and ask for the confirmation in writing.

Malpractice in the CQI IRCA exam, and why the appeal matters

Malpractice is defined broadly: any deliberate activity, neglect, default or other practice that compromises or could compromise the assessment process, the integrity of a certified course, the validity of a result or certificate, or the reputation of CQI and IRCA certified courses.

The consequence is severe. A learner found guilty of malpractice receives a disqualified result whether or not they passed, and CQI reserves the right to bar the learner from future CQI examinations indefinitely. The appeal is the only review of that decision, and it runs to the same 14 calendar days. The page on what the proctoring records covers how an incident reaches a decision in the first place.

Frequently asked questions about CQI IRCA ISO 27001 exam appeals and adjustments

Where to go next: more ISO 27001 Lead Auditor exam preparation

• What happens if you fail the examination — resits, certificates, and what the rules leave open.
• How long the certificate stays valid — once you do pass.

3FOLD TRAINING is a CQI and IRCA Approved Training Partner, ATP number 6039853. Its ISO 27001 Lead Auditor training course is the CQI and IRCA Certified ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Lead Auditor (Information Security Management Systems) Training Course. The course identification number is 2889. Both the partner approval and the course certification are on 3FOLD TRAINING’s Approved Training Partner record, and any provider’s certified courses can be looked up in CQI and IRCA’s own directory of certified courses and approved training partners. The course page carries the schedule and what the course includes. If you would rather ask a person first, use the course enquiry form.