Mary White College Postgraduate and Honours Group

I know most postgraduate and honours students have done enough exams to last themselves a lifetime and don’t want any more hints. But just in case you are interested (or want to help someone else doing them) here are a few hints that few of the college academic mentors and myself put together a few years ago.

• Go to all of your lectures, tutorials and pracs!
• The most important factor I can think of is to learn how to learn how do you study best? Don’t try this if pushed for time, but try different study methods and see what works best for you. Everyone is different and I know from experience what works for me will not work for 99% of you.
• Don’t be afraid of your lecturers - go see/email/phone them. Often they are impressed that you made the effort to contact them.
• Allocate your time for each exam carefully. Consider these factors;
•         Check your marks and calculate the marks you need in each exam.
•         How well do you know the subject matter? You will get more benefit out of learning topics you struggle with, than perfecting the topics you are already familiar with.
•        Take time to relax BUT not procrastinate. This is a fine line to balance.
• Study previous exam papers. This technique has worked the best for me - it prepares you the type of questions that may be asked and examiners have been known to reuse questions (but be careful see below). Go to the UNE library homepage (http://une.edu.au/library/) > click “help with exam papers” to find out how to get past exam papers for your subject.
• Be careful with only studying what you have been told is in the exam / seen is previous papers
•    what happens if the person who told what was in the exam was wrong? (rare if that person is the examiner but it has happened to me)
•    what happens if your year happens to the year the examiner changes the questions? (this has happened to me on more than one occasion)
•    The real world (what you are training for) will expect you to know the entire subject not just the bits in the exam. Examiners know this.
• Learn from multiple sources - other sources may explain a concept in a different way that you understand better. There are many resources available, your lecture notes, text books, scientific papers and even the internet. BE CAREFUL if there is opinion/point of view/context involved (and there always is), learning from the examiners own material (lecture notes/text book) is the best as it reflects the examiners opinion/point of view/context (and they mark the exam after all).
• Try to remove external distractions to prevent procrastinating. Give your internet cable/ computer power cord or any other device that may distract you to your R.F. or the office.
• Study in a common room or outside - removes the distractions in your room and the inherent noise present in some blocks. BUT don’t go somewhere where you know you will be distracted from your work (e.g. by a TV or by friends wanting a chat)
• Organise study groups.
•      You can use each others strengths and weaknesses in the subject to help and test each other.
•      Studying with other dedicated people (even if not doing the same subjects) can inspire you. The opposite is also true if the other students are easily distracted. Avoid this.
•     All common rooms and tutorial rooms can be booked for this purpose.
• Relax and don’t panic.
• Take a 5 minute break every hour. Rest your eyes (look into the distance as your eyes have been focussed at less than a metre for a long period of time).
• Listen to music (be careful what type though - I find any music I hum/sing a long to is distracting). Personal choice is important here, some people prefer absolutely no sound (I recommend ear plugs in that situation).
• Make sure your daily rhythms (sleeping, eating etc) aren’t too disrupted.
• Don’t be afraid to take a longer break once a day and particularly straight after an exam (recovery time is important to clear the head).
• Exercise works well for me and also allows “clear head” time with no books etc in front of me. I find this time extremely valuable as I can go over what I do and don’t remember and figure out what I need to work on.
• If you do have must see TV or similar (not recommended but we are human) take your notes for the ad breaks
• Know where your exam is  http://une.edu.au/studentcentre/examtimetable.htm Check out where the room is beforehand if unsure where to find it.

Doing the exam 

• Don’t panic, everyone else is doing the same exam as you are.
• READ THE QUESTION. Another thing that has tripped me up previously. Underline the important words or phrases in the questions before you start.
• Allocate your time appropriately. There is the law of diminishing returns in an exam - it is harder to get the final marks (e.g. greater than 15 out of 20) on an easier question than the first few marks on a harder question. If completely at a loss for words, reword the question, it will be worth a few marks.
• Make notes before you start (in your answer book) just in case you forget a point while writing your answer. If you run out of time, these notes can be marked in lieu of a normal answer.
• OPEN BOOK exams. Do not think it will be easier just because you have a book in front of you with the answers. You won’t have time to look up every answer in the book and the examiner will expect a higher standard of answer. Learn the subject as you would normally and index your book/notes so you can find things fast - some people put “postit” type notes on relevant pages or create their own index pages.
• Don’t be afraid to use pictures/equations/diagrams/bullet points to describe things. If it easier for you to describe things like that, it will be easier to mark and believe me, the examiner will like it. Briefly put yourself in an examiner’s shoes, reading & marking 20 exams on the same topic, what would you prefer, a diagram or 500 words explaining the same thing? These techniques are also great timesavers (a picture does tell a 1000 words). 

These are just some tips from someone who has done over 30 university level exams, attended a number of  “learning to learn” workshops and marked exams. They may not all work for you, everyone is different but I would be willing to bet that most are applicable.