Exam Preparation Strategies for Undergraduates
1.Find out what overall percentage the examination has in relation to assessed course work.
2.Make sure you know which courses are examined - e.g. information from seminars (as well as lectures).
3.If work covered in seminars is assessed, find out who writes the questions - does each tutor (if there are several) contribute a question - which ones? Do different seminar groups follow slightly different patterns with different pacing? How far are they standard/non standard - how is this reflected (or not) in examination questions?
[If questions are standard for all groups, then it is in your interests to discuss seminar topics with members of different seminar groups.]
4.Old examination papers - get hold of these as soon as possible (many are now available on the web). They will give you an idea of:
a.The format and structure of the exams - how much/how little choice do you have in answering questions?
b.The percentage of marks per question (ask).
c.Potentially high scoring questions (e.g. questions with maths/stats/calculations can attract potential full marks – which essay-type questions cannot do).
d.Timing - overall time allocated for the whole examination and time available for each question, to give you an idea of quantity and standard - how much you have to cover within the given time limits.
e.Likely questions - if you know what the likely questions are in terms of type of question as well as content) this will alert you to answers you come across in lectures, reading etc. Look at question trends over a number of years, if possible, to spot the 'chestnuts' which are likely to be included.
f.Study individual questions and try to break them down into sub-topics - i.e. the little questions to be answered which make up the much bigger questions. (Something similar to what you do with essay titles - this should help you identify what is relevant/irrelevant, but remember your time limits!).
g.For individual questions, try to judge, by making lists, which points you think will attract marks. You should also consider which points you think may lose marks - so that you can avoid such areas.
h.Practise drafting answers - e.g. in five minutes write down all the main points for e.g. a 30 minute question.
i.Take a draft and expand it into a practice answer (time yourself). See what you have to do to complete your answer within the time limits. This should also help you discover which type of question you are good at - and which not so good. Match this against how much choice you have. Can you safely leave out the type of question you are not so good at - or is this an area on which you need to improve?
ii. Get together with friends to discuss possible answers (see also 3. above) - you could all brainstorm for five minutes (see (i) above) and compare ideas on what you all think is relevant or irrelevant in the interpretation of the question.
5.Remember, working together to prepare for examinations helps everybody. Preparation is non-competitive. In the actual examination, then you are on your own, but even so, you are mainly competing with yourself and the examination paper - that it should not defeat you. Your good/bad mark has no effect on anybody else.
6.The best way to overcome the examination is to be well informed about it, so, I repeat - get hold of previous examination papers as early as possible. This means that you will know what to expect (to some extent), and the more you know, the less worrying the whole thing will be.
7.Model answers
Some schools may provide you with model answers to questions. Find out who these were written by. Good answers to questions written by students who did well in the examination in the past can prove very helpful.
Answers provided by tutors can be daunting as they will probably not have been written under examination conditions which means:
a.They may well have used references which students have no access to in examinations.
b.They are not often written within the time constraints of an examination and thus produce
far more than would have been possible for a student within examination time limits.
c.Tutors feel an obligation to provide a 'perfect' answer to a particular question - but they
ignore (very often) the examination conditions under which students have to work. In reality,
a tutor/examiner would not expect (or be able to get) such 'perfection' under examination conditions as might be suggested by their model answer.
Be aware of this if you get sample answers provided by tutors. Ask under what conditions they were written. (Occasionally, tutors do sit down and write examination papers with students - but this is rare). Bear this in mind and do not be too put off. Look at the main points they have included (some of the examples, expansion would probably not be possible under real examination conditions) and use these as your guide - e.g. which theories/ideas are central - in terms of bench marks/influence/application etc.
Prepare for examinations as a matter of daily routine - i.e. an ongoing task - so that you spot relevant/important/crucial points as you read, attend lectures/seminars, write essays etc. In this way, they will be less stressful and more a matter of the logical development of part of your course.
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