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Exam Technique

How to show them what you`re made of

Date : 17/06/2016

Author Information

James

Uploaded by : James
Uploaded on : 17/06/2016
Subject : Basic Skills

Whether you like it or not, exams are going to be a big part of your youth. It is very important to know how to tackle them well and to do the best you can do. Therefore, I wanted to write this article to share some of the advice I was given, which I found invaluable to me.

I`ve always felt that exam preparation starts long before you get to the exam hall. It`s not about the long hours and cramming. In the end, all you get from that is sheer exhaustion and that annoying feeling that whenever you try to learn something new, you forget something else. I was often a victim of that. I did find a way round it though. The old saying `early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise` sums it up perfectly. To really do your best in an exam, you have to try to keep early nights and sleep well. If you`re worried you won`t get it all done, then just make sure you get up earlier. You`ll be more awake and more receptive to working well then.

It also helps to `pace out` your studies, so you don`t leave it all to the last minute. This can make you panic and resort to the long nights to try to get it all done. I have been guilty of doing that myself, although it rarely worked, as I struggled to focus properly later at night. The best thing to do is start recapping as early as you can. Revision is never complete until you sit that last exam, but starting that revision as early as possible can help you reduce the fear that you have too much to do in too short a time.

Getting to the exam hall or class room, you`ll often find a lot of people are busy looking through all their notes for last minute revision. This is supposed to help them with those last few things they couldn`t quite remember. However, I always found that it just causes more panic, as you find more things you realise you didn`t know. Then you start to forget things you did know. It`s a negative cycle. There are also those who say that if you are cramming before an exam, it`s because you haven`t done enough revision beforehand and if you don`t already know it, you won`t know it well enough for the exam so late on anyway. I believe there is definitely some truth in this. To do your best in an exam, you have to be fresh and relaxed - two things cramming before an exam won`t give you.

When you finally start the exam, the best advice is to read all the questions carefully before you start answering any. You need to make sure you don`t misread any questions, which could cost you all the marks for that question (even if you gave a perfect answer to a question that wasn`t asked).

Reading the exam paper through thoroughly first will also help you to decipher which questions you feel comfortable with and which questions may need more time for you to answer. This enables you to obtain as many marks as you can, even with questions you may find more difficult to approach. Teachers and lecturers have told me the best thing to do is to get the hardest questions out of the way first, so you can concentrate on the easier ones after, which won`t take as long. I disagree because if you get stuck on the tough questions, you`ll spend a lot of time trying to complete them and then you won`t have enough time to complete the questions you can do, which means you`re going to lose even more marks. You must decide which way works best for you, but in the end, your goal is to complete as much of the paper as possible to ensure a high success rate. Not completing the paper fully is going to lose you marks anyway.

That also brings me on to my next point, which is never stay on one question too long if you`re stuck. The best thing to do there is quickly move on if you know you can`t answer it straight away. You don`t want to waste any time. I have often found that when I`ve left a hard question and started working on another, the method or answer for the that question has popped into my mind.

Above all, just don`t panic. Exam are daunting for most people, especially when you see the others turning over their pages and writing faster than you. The one thing in life that you should never do is live with regret. Always do your best, giving yourself the highest chance for success. Only then can you know that no matter what happens, you couldn`t have done any more.

Good luck!

This resource was uploaded by: James