If you’d rather listen to this newsletter, click here.
End of October, and the exams are upon us. It’s a time of stress and tension. In the newsletters over the next few weeks, we will help you deal with that. Today, however, we focus on how to give your absolute best when you sit down to write those exams.
Here are some simple, practical guidelines:
- Check the venue and time the day before the exam.
- Make a time plan beforehand: check how much time is alotted for the exam, and how many marks. Divide the total marks into quarters, i.e. divide by 4, and divide the total number of minutes you have into quarters. Then you know: when a quarter of the time has passed, you should have finished questions which count about a quarter of the marks. In writing a three-hour paper (180 minutes), you should finish questions for a quarter of the marks in every 45 minutes.
- On the day, get up early and be at the venue with time to spare.
- Do not talk to panicky students around you.
- Go to the toilet before the exam starts.
- When you sit down, take a deep breath and focus. Breathe out your tension. Now is the time to put on paper what you know, not to worry about what you don’t know.
- When you get the paper, check how many marks each question represents and fit it roughly into the quarters in your time plan.
- Start with what you know best. You do not have to answer the questions in order. Starting with stuff you know will help you relax and build your confidence. Leave the things you are unsure of for last.
- Read the question carefully. Underline words like explain, compare, evaluate, calculate, define so you know exactly what is expected. Answer the question they ask, not the one you wish they asked.
- Ask the invigilator (the person who supervises the exam) for help if you are not clear on a question. He or she will tell you if you are asking something they are not allowed to say. Don’t waste time worrying if you should ask, just do it.
- Give yourself a moment to compose your thoughts before you start writing your answer. Focus on making your answer as clear as possible.
- Even if you’re unsure, set out your reasoning. Lecturers will often give marks for part-answers.
- Try and keep your handwriting legible. Remember the poor lecturer has dozens, maybe hundreds, of papers to mark over the next few weeks. Make their job as easy as you can.
- Keep an eye on the time. Don’t spend more time on a question than it’s worth, or you may run out of time and lose all the marks allocated to the later questions.
- Use every minute of the available time.
If you finish early, review your answers before handing in the paper.If you were a soccer player, these would be the big matches. It’s natural to be nervous, but this is where your work of the past year has taken you. This is your time to show what you can do.
Good luck!
The Grad team
———————————————————
Click here to check out our other podcasts
If you like our content, forward and share!
