Anticipating
questions before an exam
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| Of course making a study plan is also useful - but it's figuring out what to put /in/ the plan that can be hard :) |
This is one of
the hardest things for many people to prepare for. The exam can seem like an
endless swirl of questions that you will have no idea about what might happen
or what might be asked. The best advice that anyone can ever give you is to cut
down the amount of work that you do. The more work you do the more things that
you will know -it sounds a little odd but the truth is you’re never rewarded
for knowing everything – you’re rewarded for knowing the right things
The critical
component of answering an exam question well, therefore, is to analyze what
exactly you will be asked. It is possible to work this out (not as an exact art
but as a reasonable probability) through six methods. I will explain these
methods below.
A.
Looking
at the textbook index
This can be
done in the days before exam or (ideally) in the holidays before the teaching
period begins. I am sure many people will find this post in the frantic
scramble three days before the exam – so I’d recommend you begin here.
To use this method,
look at the index of the textbook. Sometimes you’ll strike lucky and find an
index that looks like this;
1.
MAIN
HEADING
-
Subheading
Ø
Key point
-
Subheading
-
Subheading
2.
MAIN
HEADING
If you have
this – focus on the main headings and study;
·
The key definition of that heading
·
The overall concept
·
Then the critical components of each subheading
Summarize these
in 1-2 pages maximum.
However, if you’re
not that lucky and your index is just a list of indistinguishable chapters, use
this list as an exam checklist. You should know everything in this checklist –
unless you were explicitly told by the teacher that it wouldn’t be on the exam.
Summarize each
component of your checklist in 100 words. If you can’t make a short, succinct
description of the component you haven’t learned it well enough. 100 words is a
very tight description and once you can describe a topic that quickly your
brain has synthesized the information so sufficiently that you should be able
to answer most questions on that topic. For this summary don’t simply memorize
the textbook description, make it in your own words after reading and
understanding the information in each chapter. That way you can be certain that
you understand how that component works and operates in your education topic.
B.
Look
at the structure by which the course was taught
Examiners
generally don’t like to repeat elements of the course that they have already
examined. So, look at what has already been on your assignments (if you’ve had
any) and don’t rehash them in your study. It’s important that you still have a
reasonably good understanding but don’t critical re-study them. It’s unlikely
that they’ll be focal points of your exam. (There is an exception to this that
I will explain later).
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| Don't forget that changing your scenery can be the perfect way to hone your focus |
That means,
usually, anything taught in that second period of the teaching season is 90%
more likely to be on the exam. Place extra special focus on these areas and use
your drop-in time to ask questions about them You can see why many students
find the exam more difficult because they often begin the teaching session with
gusto, studying late into the night and perfecting the first 4-6 weeks’ worth
of material. However, those last few weeks are e the critical components to the
exam and they fall because they burned out and weren’t really prepared for that
kind of work.
C.
Look
at older practice exams – and exams from similar courses
The common
trick is to do practice exams. Many people suggest it – but few realize the
utility of practice exams from other universities. While the marking and
writing style may be different – don’t think that your professors don’t want to
borrow questions from other lecturers. Writing exam questions is hard (particularly
if you work in a field like law or politics where the questions must be
carefully thought out).
So, borrowing
the questions from another institution where you can presume that the student
hasn’t tried them is a straightforward way of getting past the difficulty of
writing out an exam question. Don’t expect that the question will be the same
but you’ll find the structurally similar question with one or two differences. Therefore,
make time to practice exams from your institution AND from other institutions.
When I was working towards my end of year high school exams I did practice
exams from every state in Australia, some from America and some from England. I
did this because I knew that if I could master the components of these exams
there was no way that I could be surprised in the final exam. The same is true
for university and other high school courses. Always be on the lookout for
courses that are like yours and try a few of their exam questions. Even if you must
learn some new things to be able to answer the questions – it’ll only make you
better prepared.
D.
When
something unexpected may appear on the exam
There is an
exception to all of this – and this is where some of you may run into trouble.
If you haven’t been attending or at least listening to recordings of your
classes I’d rush through as many of them as I could right now.
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| My mess of a desk in the midst of study.... |
When your
lecturer spends three or more weeks on the topic – take that as a hint it’s
going to be on the exam. They won’t waste time teaching you things if they don’t
want it to be a part of the examination at the end. Additionally, if your
teacher repeats a phrase, point or source of information you can guarantee that
is going to have something to do with the exam. Don’t forget about it just
because it’s annoying you or you think it’s an annoying quirk. Chances are they’re
deliberately saying this to you because it’s the exact phrase or material they
want to refer to in their marking guide.
Examiners have
a marking guide which is a lot like an exam checklist. You need to hit every
point on that checklist to get the highest mark. It’s a very rare exam where it
matters the content of what you’re saying – and not the content that they’re
looking for. Remember, the average lecturer has at least 100 students to mark,
they don’t have time to base the work of each student on their individual
merit. Unfortunately, you must appeal to the criteria they’re looking for.
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