coping with exams _ academic skills centre _ university of canberra

8/2/2019 Coping With Exams _ Academic Skills Centre _ University of Canberra

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4/12/2011 Coping ih Eam : Academic Skill Cene : Uniei of Canbea

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Coping ith Eams

When to prepare

How to prepare

Before the exam

During the exam

After the exam

Multiple-choice exams

Open-book exams

Taking notes into an exam

Special arrangements for illness or disabilities

Exams at university are a totally different experience from exams at school. For a start,

teachers probably trained you for the exam situation with mock exams, revision sheets,

exercises and so on. At university that doesnt happen. You have to take responsibility f

learning and preparation.

Secondly, exams at university generally aim to test how well you understand your subje

Lecturers are often more interested in whether you can apply the knowledge you have g

than in how many facts you have learned. So you need to be able to think analytically r

simply regurgitate facts.

On this page, we give you some tips about how to approach exams in the university con

When to prepare

University exams are supposed to test how well you UNDERSTAND your subject, not nec

much you know. Thats why cramming in the last week before the exam may help you to

you want to do well, you should be preparing for the exam from Day One of the semeste

reading, thinking and understanding as as you go along through the semester, your need

to rote learn) will be minimal, your stress level will be minimal, and your pleasure in study

maximised. So, the earlier you start the better!

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How to prepare

From da one ...

Be organised right from the beginning. Get into the habit of reviewing your lecture notes,

from your reading, discussing the topics with fellow-students, making a note of question

ask in tutorials, reorganising your notes and so on. In short, be an active student.

Later ...

Find out what the exam entails. You need to know:

what topics will be covered

what types of questions to expect

how many questions you have to answer

how the marks will be distributed

how long the exam will be

what equipment to take.

Sometimes it is possible to predict questions from the subject guide or from the lecturer

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emphasis. NB Lecturers often give tips on the exam in the later lectures of the course

you dont miss any classes.

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Make a plan

Schedule times for revising your various topics:

1. How many topics do you need to cover?

2. Will some of them take more time to revise?

3. How many days have you got for revision?

4. So how many topics will you need to cover each day?

Make sure you allow time to come back to each topic before the exam. (Revise your revi

Be active!

Your learning needs to be highly interactive. Revision does not mean just reading throug

(or worse looking through your notes). It means using your highlighter (not in library bo

notes of your notes, drawing diagrams, testing yourself. You can try writing summaries o

points; covering up the diagrams and charts and trying to reproduce them; making your

cues and concept maps (sometimes its easier to remember the way something looks). In

situation of the exam it will help you to have as many memory cues as possible. So reco

notes into lists, charts and diagrams will really help.

Being active also means practising questions from former papersnot just looking at the

planning your answers and even writing them out. You can make up your own questions

practise on those.

Be analtical!

University exams are usually designed to test more than how much you know. Your lectu

know how well you can apply your knowledgehow well you can think. So, above all, re

thinking analytically. That means thinking around and about your topic and asking yours

like:

How does this topic relate to others in this subject?

What are the similarities and differences between this topic (or theory, or point of

and others?

What examples can I think of to illustrate this?

What if ... happened, how would that affect the topic?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of ... ?

What are the problems involved, and how could they be solved?

Why does ... happen? (What are the causes and effects?)

Where can ... be applied, and where not?

The more you think analytically, the more you will understand your topic and the more e

able to answer the questions.

Practise!

Use questions from past exam papers, discussion questions from your textbook, or make

mock exam questions. Practise answering these questions in the same timeframe that yo

stick to in the exam. Practising getting the timing right is really important. Actually pract

the limited time. It will give you a much better idea of what you can or cannot attempt i

allowed.

You could show your practise answers to your tutor, or to a study skills adviser to get f

whether your answers are appropriate or not.

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Before the eam

Think positive! Remind yourself of all that you have done in preparation for the exam and

about what you dont know. Make sure you have a good nights sleep beforehand (or as

possible!) and that you are as centred as possible. Avoid unnecessary last minute panic

make sure you know where the exam room is and when the exam starts!


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If you have prepared well for the exam and have managed your t ime sensibly, you shoul

excessively nervous. Its good to be keyed up for an exam; a certain amount of anxiety

perform well. Some people, however, suffer from extreme anxiety about exams which inh

ability to perform. Anxiety may cause them to see a white blank on the page, for exampl

physically ill. If this is the case with you, you should contact the Health and Counselling

Academic Skills Centre. We can help you to develop relaxation techniques, and to get a

of control over your study.

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During the eam

Keep cool! If you can keep calm you will not make any silly mistakes.

1. First scan the entire paper. You can get into serious difficulties if you dont realise

how little) you are expected to do.

2. Then work out how much time you have for each question (or each sec tion) of th

an eye on your watch to make sure you are pacing yourself correctly. You might

your exam paper of the timing you have decided on.

3. Read the question carefull and answer it relevantl. The most common reason

marks in exams is that students don't read questions properly and don't focus the

what is required.

Questions usually include:

1. a topic

2. limiting words (which tell you what aspect of the topic to address)

3. a direct ion (e.g. explain, discuss, gives the reasons why, describe, analyse ...) (s

the question)

Students often make the mistake of writing down everything they know about the topic,

thinking about the direction word and the limiting words. For example, take the question:

interrelationship between the three levels of government in Australia. Here the topic is t

Government in Australia, but the limiting word is interrelationship and the direction wor

would be wrong to spend a lot of time listing all the attributes of the three levels of gov

you must do is focus on the interrelationships, not their individual properties, and discus

words, compare the roles of the three levels, show how they overlap or link together, an

the problems and advantages of the interrelationships). Rememberdetail is important tbut analytical thinking is more important in forming ideas.

Plan your answers. Spend about five minutes thinking about your answers before y

write. Organise your ideas and jot down an outline. A few minutes spent in this wa

to write a coherent essay with a good introduction and conclusion, and will save y

in the end.

Don't forget a summary and general conc lusion.

Write legibly. It's better to write less, but legibly, than to write a lot, illegibly. Bad

can be very annoying to markers.

Get the key points down. If you run out of time, use dot-points to get your main p

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After the eam

It can be helpful to have a look at your exam paper after it has been marked. What coul

next time round? You might like to discuss that question with your lecturer or with a stu

adviser. However, university regulations mean that you cannot take your exam paper aw

photocopy it.

Take-home eams

You need to prepare for take-home exams too. Take-home exams are often marked mor

other exams, taking into consideration presentation (spelling, referencing and so on) as

In particular, you will have to demonstrate analytical thinking. You need to be familiar wi

content and to have done plenty of background reading so that you can answer a take-adequately in the limited time available.

Multiple-choice eams

The most important advice for multiple choice exams is to read the exam paper carefully!


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the questions at a fairly steady pace. Dont hurry yourself, but above all do not get stuc

not sure about an answer, have a reasonable guess, put a mark beside that question, a

Dont spend time agonising over a question you may get wrong anyway! If you have tim

the exam, you can go back through the marked questions and double-check your answe

Multiple choice exams are usually c arefully designed to minimise the luck factor. So kee

and work steadily through the paper.

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Open-book eams

You need a very particular revision strategy for open-book exams. You need to be absol

with your textbook(s). It may be a good idea to make concept maps of the relevant cha

least summaries that you can use as a quick prompt. You need to be familiar with using

contents so that you can quickly identify the correct place in the book to help you with

You will have to be particularly careful about plagiarism, too. Remember to use quotation

sentences that you copy from the book. You will need plenty of practice in paraphrasing

beforehand.

It is worthwhile practising on previous exam papers before the exam, as timing can be di

book exams. It can be tempting to spend too much time desperately searching through t

need to know exactly where to find what you need.

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Taking notes into the eam

Some lecturers invite you to take and one or two A4 pages of notes into the exam. This

strategy to make you revise!

Dont write out full essay answers on these sheets, because you do not know exactly h

questions will be phrased and your model answers may not answer the question effectiv

use your sheet to summarise main points, and perhaps include some useful quotations (e

literature exams). Use a clear layout with visual cues such as lay-out, underlining, conc

so on. Tiny writing may not be wise, because you will need to refer to your sheet quickl

efficiently.

Special arrangements for illness or disabilit

In some cases, arrangements can be made for students to have extra time in exams. Fo

students who have a disability may be eligible. The Disabilities Officer can tell you more

Also, in special circumstances such as sickness or bereavement, lecturers will arrange fo

deferred exam at a later date. If you need help arranging this, talk to the Sden' A

Study Skills Adviser.

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coping with exams _ academic skills centre _ university of canberra

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