Exam-taking tips
- Wake up early. Set like 3284928798 alarms. Not only will you avoid being late, but you’ll also have time to eat a relaxing breakfast and do some last minute reviewing.
- Make sure bring everything you need. Bring extra batteries for your calculator/electronic dictionary. Rulers are commonly forgotten, as are identity cards! Bring spare pens/pencils - the worst feeling in the world is dropping your pen, picking it up, and realising the ink won’t flow anymore.
- And leave behind everything you should. Phones. Phones.
- Go to the toilet before reporting time. No explanation required.
- Relax. You’ll likely have 10 minutes before the exam starts where all you have to do is shade some bubbles and ignore the head invigilator. Cool down, and smile reassuringly at the people around you (optional). Go through formulas/concepts in your head if you’re bored.
- Manage your time wisely. Take the number of minutes you have and divide it by the total number of marks, then multiply that by 0.8. That’s the amount of time you should spend per mark, allowing for some checking. If you think there’s a question which will exceed that time, skip it first and get back to it later. It’s better than losing yourself in the question.
- Read the question. Exam-setters love to trick you. Don’t let them. If you must, highlight key parts of the question. Don’t forget trivial things like standard IUPAC nomenclature. (In fact, one of my teachers deliberately sets questions that trick you in the worst, most trivial, ways, and then watches us do the paper. And laughs.)
- Don’t be careless. If for some reason they give you a diagram, but label it X, Y, etc, and then proceed to tell you what X is in the question, write it down on the diagram, or just circle it and draw an arrow. Check your calculator input.
- Write legibly. Some markers will dock off points for poor penmanship.
- Show your workings. Working marks are common in Math/Physics/etc. exams. Also, if your final answer is wrong, most markers will still give you half points. Also, error carried forward is your friend.
- Check. Check everything. Redo your calculations. Check you answered the question, and labelled your diagrams correctly. Check your axes, units, conversions.
- Forgive yourself. If you feel you made mistakes, etc., it’s over. Worry about your next exam, or not at all.
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