What to do in a real exam
Following on from my method for exam studies, I should be reasonably well-prepared for exams. Unfortunately, having A+ answers in the head won’t always guarantee an A+ answer script. As requested by Alex, here are the good things I do during a real exam:
- Time management: weigh the time against maximum marks allocated. A two-hour test (120 minutes) for three essays means maximum 40 minutes on each essay. Key is to finish the paper overall. If time’s up for one question and it’s incomplete, skip and go to the next because there is “diminishing marginal contribution” for each word written. Two excellent answers doesn’t beat three above-average. Go back and add extra blabbing if there’s leftover time in the end.
3 x 80% > 2 x 90% + 1 x 50%
- Plan, plan, plan: before writing an essay or long answer, do a plan. I scribble bulleted main points to provide a basic structure and direction so I know where I’m going. If I don’t have enough time to finish my answer, the examiner would refer to the plan and see where I intended to go. There’s usually marks awarded for the main points in plans if the actual answer is unfinished.
- Easy first: this comes down to personal preference, but I like getting easy questions out of the way first. It tends to build up confidence during exams and the easy could be finished quickly to save extra time for the hard. If I’m writing a hard question first, the nightmare of even more questions to do afterwards haunts me while I’m writing. Scan through all the questions of the paper before writing and attack the little weaklings before the big-heads. Most of the time, answers don’t have to be written in the order of questions given.
- Write legibly: neat handwriting is not a priority during exams, but pleasing the marker could only be a good thing. If a marker is wavering between giving a four or a five, the one key determinant could be down to legibility. Of course, speed writing is worth more than neat, so speed and “comfortably legible” is the way to go. (Because “barely legible” is still a synonym for bad.)
- Check answers: finishing an exam early doesn’t mean “Yeah baby I’m outta here!” But rather, going back and redo the entire test paper or just rechecking the answers. I have this habit of not leaving exams early. I had 1.5 hours left after I finished my last Statistics exam. So I sat there doodling this current site design (Version 19). While doodling, a thought struck me and I knew I got one answer wrong. If I had left early, I would never have been able to correct it.
(In the end however, I did leave my Statistics exam 30 minutes early and retreat to MSN on school computers. Don’t copy.)
During an exam, much of it comes down to the study beforehand, confidence and time. I tend to know my stuff, but I also tend to lose confidence just before entering the exam room and spend too much time perfecting answers. I get my confidence back by answering easy questions first, and time is a bigger problem. I’m a fast writer (I write short and concisely, arguably good or bad), but most of my time go into deciding what and how to write. So #1 and #2 are my “big things”.
Some people are good at studying, some people are good at writing exams, I’m probably good at neither. I just know how to cram and I stick to the above tips. A lot of study and exam techniques depend on individual habits, but I hope these may help nevertheless.
Related posts
- Method for exam studies
- Good to be home
- Hard test and crazy students
- Gazing into the future
- Monotonous + rigid = professional?
