While we spend most of our time learning and revising the content of the exams we are taking, exam technique is a highly underrated area for getting the best grades you’re capable of. Ensuring your exam technique is as good as it could be gives you the best value for money (or in this case, your time) when it comes to revision.
No matter how confident you are in your subject, bad exam technique will let you down, and also if you’re really struggling with a subject developing your exam technique can help boost your marks even if you’re stuck on the course content.
Particularly for GCSEs and A-levels, exam technique revolves around working out what the markers need to hear and formulating your answers to hit those key criteria.
Here are some tips for developing your exam technique…
1. Mark Schemes
If you’re spending lots of time doing past papers, you’ll start to notice similar themes popping up between questions, and while you’ll check use the mark scheme to grade your answers it can be very handy to compare what the mark schemes say for similar questions across papers. This will allow you to right yourself a list of points that are looked for in questions of that type so that you can revise the topic knowing exactly what the examiners need to hear.
2. Mark other people’s work
If you enjoy studying with friends, it can be really helpful to trade past papers and mark each other’s work. While this exercise often makes classrooms groan it’s actually a valuable tool for you to not just help your friends get the best marks they possibly can, but also for you to learn from their answers by getting new ideas of how to approach questions and by seeing what things you’re actually pretty great at that your friend hasn’t quite realised yet.
If this idea makes you uncomfortable, you can also find sample exam answers online from different levels so you can mark the answers of an anonymous person and get to know the mark schemes better.
3. Have a Plan
What are you going to do when you first open the exam paper? Many people are tempted to just start at the beginning and go through each question one by one until they make it through all of them, but this probably isn’t the best use of the limited time you have.
My recommendation is to skim read the exam paper quickly at the start and notice all the topics included, then go back to the beginning to work through the questions, ensuring if you get stuck you skip that question pretty quickly and move on. Do all the questions you can easily manage first, then work through the harder ones later to ensure you pick up all the easy marks first.
4. Learn the meaning of command words
Do you know the difference between state, describe, explain, evaluate, and compare? Learning exactly what these words mean, and how to approach the exam question when you see them will make sure you get the most marks possible by answering exactly what the question is asking for.
5. Digest the questions thoroughly
Sometimes exams will be written to test how well you can comprehend the meaning of the question, so the information you need to use might not be obvious initially which can be pretty overwhelming. To attack these complicated questions, you need to fully understand what is being asked of you, and what relevant information you have been told.
My technique is to always bring a highlighter to highlight the command word and anything you need to know, such as key numbers in science and maths exams. This will make it easier to look back at the question and see the information you need straight away without wasting precious time reading the question again. If you’re less keen on highlighters, try underlining or drawing a box around key points.
Try working on these ideas the next time you are revising, remember it’s not just important to know the subject, but also to know how to do the exam.
By tutor Tenujaa