Description: Private Tutor Danielle shares top tips on how to successfully prepare for university entrance exams.
The university application process is known to be arduous and, at times, stressful for students. Having to sit an additional exam can make this process even more stressful but, as with every other part of sixth form, it is a lot more doable than it initially seems. All you need is some time, patience and a roadmap. While time and patience are aspects I can’t help with, I have a proven roadmap to share with you.
* Please note: This is a strategy for exams consisting of multiple choice or short answer questions, not long answer essay questions.
Phase 1 – Preparation
Step 1: Don’t panic.
Even if you have left exam preparation late, not all hope is lost! Whilst it may seem like an overwhelming amount of work to-do, working smart can boil down a seemingly impossible task into something more manageable. So, don’t panic. Here’s what you should do instead:
Step 2: Find out what the university actually wants
You want to ask yourself the following questions:
- Why do they have an entrance exam anyway?
Speaking for the UK, most universities don’t have entrance exams. That means if universities choose to implement such measures, they have a reason for doing so and it’s your job to figure out why. Often times, entrance exams are used to identify which candidates have specific characteristics that cannot be assessed simply by comparing grades. A good example of this is the UKCAT or BMAT which seek to identify the logical reasoning ability of a candidate. Checking the university’s website and identifying characteristics required to excel in your particular degree is a good starting point to figuring out what universities actually want from you.
- What do they expect?
For most university courses, there are a grade requirements and knowing what those are can be really helpful for setting your own expectations. If, for example, your course doesn’t require maths to be taking during sixth form and there are maths problems on the exam, they won’t be at A-level, IB HL or AP standard.
- What score should I be aiming for?
This links to the previous question but finding admissions stats for your subject will help you determine the mark that you should be aiming for. Many of these tests are not designed to allow students to obtain really high scores so releasing that expectation early will save you a great deal of stress.
What skills are they testing?
For some entrance exams, the university will list out the skills they’re testing in their entrance exam. Practising these skills broadly will help you to develop them. For example, if they’re testing translation in a language entrance exam, reading in the target language and understanding it will be good practise because you’ll be able to convey ideas from another language if you understand them.
Step 3: Master your strategy.
The worst thing that could happen in an exam is that you don’t know what to do or what to write. The best way to tackle that? Having a strategy. Sometimes just having a process you can follow in an exam even if you don’t know what you’re doing gives your brain some time to stop freaking out and to do what it’s best at: problem-solving. To master your strategy, you need to:
Find out the question types
For example, the TSA (an entrance exam used by some universities for social science degrees) is split into 2 sections: one multiple-choice paper and one 30-minute essay. Knowing that there are about 9-10 different types of questions targeting 2 skills, critical thinking and problem-solving, will allow you to work towards perfecting each question type. After practising each question type, you should, in theory, be able to do the whole of the first paper.
Figure out the timings
The one thing that may hinder your ability to do well in the exam is running out of time so it’s something you should already have concerned before entering the exam hall. You can do this by working out how many minutes per mark or if there’s an advised amount of time you should spend on a particular type of question, take a note of this. Once you have
Figure out your process for each question type
Usually, at the beginning of a book full of practise questions, there will be a description as to how best to approach each question. If there isn’t or you don’t have access to a book like this, try looking up strategies on the wonder that is the Internet. If you’re still not sure, attempt questions with commentary answers so that if you get them wrong, you can create a strategy of your own using the tips you’ve gathered from there.
Practise, practise practice. Oh, and did I say practise?
When practising questions:
Make sure to practise a block of questions that are all the same type. This will allow you to learn how to identify the question type quicker. It also gives you a sign to stop so you don’t spend all day working on these questions because you’re stressed.
1. Attempt the question
2. Mark the question
3. If you got it wrong, try and figure out why yourself – write this in a different colour.
4. Check the mark scheme or walk-through (if there is one) and add in anything you may have missed or anything that could be helpful for the next question in another colour. Now you’ve differentiated between what you could figure out and what you couldn’t.
5. Attempt the next question
This may seem tedious – why would you not mark all the questions at the end? Doing it this way ensures you approach each question with a better idea of what to do and allows you to pick up on nuances that you may not have otherwise realised. Also, you don’t want to instil the “wrong” method or idea because of muscle-memory.
6. Once you finish your block of questions, make note of something that went well, something that could’ve been better and what to do for next time. I’d advise you to keep this in a table so that you can see your progress over time. Make sure to look at this before you attempt this style of question again.
Now you know how to practise a block of questions with efficiency, one question remains: do you practise the question to time or not?
I’d recommend doing them not to time at first.
This will allow you to focus on mastering your process and approach to each type of question. You should continue to do this (if you have enough time) until:
- You’ve perfected your process/approach
- You’ve ensured your strategy actually helps YOU get the right answer
Once you know the strategy works, you’ll feel more confident in the exam, especially because you can rest assured that if you mind goes blank, you have something to fall back on.
I say ‘YOU’ because whilst a strategy straight out of a textbook may work fine for someone else, it may not be the best way for you. Don’t be afraid to tweak it to fit you or create a whole new strategy altogether!
Now, if your strategy works, move onto the next step. If not, let’s troubleshoot your strategy.
Troubleshooting your process:
- Find patterns: are there a particular nuances you’re always missing or mistakes you’re making?
For example, in the TSA being able to differentiate between premises and conclusions is really important. If you find that this is something you can’t do, you’ve discovered a pattern.
- Practise on easier questions.
With the example above, you may look up arguments for GCSE RS or psychology students and try and identify premises and clauses.
- Adjust your strategy as is necessary.
You may realise that you should another step to your strategy, such as highlighting key words, after practising on easier questions
Right, so you have your strategy down – now what?
Practise to time.
It’s the timing that’s the stickler for many university entrance exams and the best way to get that down is to practise doing the questions to time. I’d still recommend doing the questions in their question blocks at this stage or mixing up blocks that are similar in question type.
Step 4: Practice tests
Now you know what to do when you see all the types of questions, it’s time to apply what you’ve learnt to a real paper. This is where you see what has stuck and what hasn’t so it’s important to see this is a learning process – don’t expect to get 100% on your first try.
When completing a practice test:
- Complete the entire test in one go.
Since you’ve got your processes down, it’s not necessary to mark each question individually since it’s so time-consuming.
- Go through and mark the test.
- Try and work out where you went wrong, do this in a different colour.
- Go through the mark scheme and add further corrections in a different colour.
- Make a note of your mark, what went well, what could’ve been better (even better if …) and what to do for next time in a tracker. Look at this before you next do a practice exam.
- If you find you’re getting a particular type of question wrong every time, go back to those question blocks and master your strategy again.
As I said earlier, these tests are not designed for really high marks and so even after lots of practise, there’ll probably still be things that aren’t quite right. But if:
- You’re getting the scores you want/need
- You have your strategy for each question type down
Then congratulations – you are officially ready for the exam.
Whilst I wouldn’t advise you to stop practising completely, I do think that at this stage, running through loads more exam papers is a bit redundant. Maybe doing one every week or fortnight will suffice. Another reason for this is that if you started preparing early, you don’t want to go through all your practice papers way before the actual exam comes around.
Phase 2 – Lead Up to the Exam
Congratulations – you made it!
Honestly, if you’ve prepared properly then doing practising for long hours isn’t necessary and this might burn you out in the lead up to the exam. If you take away anything from this blog post make it this:
Consistent practise always wins. Always.
If you’ve been consistently practising, there’s no need to cram too much last-minute revision. I will say though that looking over your practice test tracker the night before the exam may be helpful as a last-minute reminder.
Last-Minute Tips
- Don’t make this your whole life. Whilst these exams are important, there are plenty of other commitments and frankly, fun things, you can be doing during sixth form. Even practising a couple of times a week at first is absolutely fine.
- Ask the experts. If there’s anything in particular that you’re worried about, ask someone who’s sat the test or is practising for it. Another alternative is to email the university – they might be able to give you one of their students details so you can ask them directly.
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