Examination Tips
Preparing for Your Examinations
Dealing With Anxiety and Stress
In the Examination Room
Preparing for Your Examinations
- Stay positive.
- Eat properly.
- Get enough sleep and exercise.
- Take regular breaks.
- Draw up a revision timetable early and allocate study time in proportion to how much the exam counts towards the final grade.
- Take time off work if you can.
- Find out exactly what is required for the exam – talk to your lecturer or tutor, refer to the unit outline.
- Check equipment needed, eg special pencils, calculator, or texts/notes for open book exams.
- Form a study group.
- Ask your lecturer if past exam papers are available.
Dealing With Anxiety and Stress
- Be thoroughly prepared for your exams.
- Be well informed about the time, location, format and types of exams that you have to sit. You cannot be given special consideration for turning up to an exam on the wrong day, at the wrong time or in the wrong location.
- If your anxiety stems from the expectations of others such as family members, discuss your fears with them so that they can understand your situation.
- Practise relaxation and stress management techniques.
- If stress gets the better of you, remember there are ways of dealing with it. The University’s Student Counsellors offer strategies and suggestions about how to relax, develop positive attitudes about yourself and your abilities and how to combat stress.
In the Examination Room
- Know exactly when and where your exam is to be held so that you can arrive comfortably on time.
- Read the exam instructions carefully, checking on the format, time limit, number of questions to be answered and the marks for each question.
- Skim through the whole paper to gain an overview (reading time is often allocated for this).
- Follow the instructions on the exam paper exactly.
- Divide your time equally between all questions in terms of distribution of marks. For example, if a question is allocated only 5% of the total mark, then you should only allocate 5% of the total exam time to answering it.
- Answer every question that the paper asks you to.
- Read each question carefully so that you focus on the question asked. Be careful to read the question for its overall meaning and purpose, rather than just identifying the topic and then writing everything you know about that topic.
- Answer the questions in order of preference - e.g. answer the questions that you feel most confident with first or perhaps you prefer to attempt the harder questions first to get them out of the way.
- Make sure your name and student ID number are on each examination script.