It’s normal to feel nervous as an exam approaches, but remind yourself that you don’t need to panic.
You’ve done the work, and the examiners are not intending to trick you with any of the questions – instead they want to give you the opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge and understanding.
Here are some things to bear in mind:
- Read the questions carefully: take two deep breaths and read the questions at least twice. There is no point undoing all your hard work up to this point by not reading the questions properly and misunderstanding them!
Allow yourself time to consider which you will be able to give the best answers to – and where you can shine!
- Plan your answers – the importance of this may vary between subjects but, for most essay subjects, spending a few minutes planning at the beginning is likely to save you time later on, and will make for a far stronger answer.
- Answer the question – this sounds so obvious, but it’s one of the main ways that you can trip yourself up in an exam. Avoid the temptation to shoehorn prepared answers into the questions: answer the actual question asked. Your examiners are not stupid and will spot a pre-prepared answer a mile off …
- Manage your time - be totally disciplined about how you much time you spend per question: if you need to answer 3 questions it is far better to give an answer to all 3 of them than to give perfect answers to two of them but write nothing for the third.
During the exam period, “SEE” still applies – you still need to sleep, eat, and go outside and get some fresh air.
If you have an online exam and you're not sure that you'll get into the right headspace in your room, then please speak to Katrina who can arrange a quiet individual space for you to sit your exam.
