EXAM ROOM TIPS FOR YOU

Hello dear readers, it’s me again EXCELINPAGES, your regular exam success tips provider. The last time I posted, I discussed on how you can correctly predict where your lecturer will set his exams from (read that here). My post today is on WHAT TO DO IN THE EXAM HALL.

I hope you understand that the earlier post talks about what you can do before the exam, now I will talk on what you should do during the exam in the exam hall.

Here are some ground works to do before, leave your home on time, make sure you are close to the exam hall, and look out for your name to know where your hall will be.

First Begin by Prayers thanking God for strength to be in the exam hall.

UNDERSTAND INSTRUCTIONS

When you get your question paper, GO THROUGH THE QUESTION INSTRUCTIONS even before you put down your name on the answer sheet. Remember that some exams are actually test of your understanding of instructions. So I suggest that you read the instructions and get a good understanding. If you are confused, ask the examiner close by.

FILL OUT YOUR DETAILS

After the instructions, go over to your answer sheet AND FILL OUT YOUR DETAILS such as name, exam number, matric number, etc. 

CHOOSING QUESTIONS TO ANSWER

Go back now again to your questions and read all the questions. While reading the questions takes note of those questions you are very sure of and the ones you know so well and those you know fairly well. Mark them in order of preference. You don’t have to answer chronologically as in answer question one, then two, three etc. you can mix the questions all up. Here is a good rule of thumb, BEGIN with the question you are known or are most confident of comfortably answering the most, and then the next best question, then pick the least question you know and finally round up with another question you are also comfortable with. Please note, if your question have marks attached to it, answer the ones with more “babies” or sub-questions attached, they usually fetch more smaller marks which when tallied yields more than answering one mighty question.

USE “KEYWORDS”

After you have chosen your questions, then I suggest you put down your “keywords”. I define question Keywords as those words in an answer to a question that act as signpost to give direction to the general text. For example, a Noun is the name of a person, animal, place or anything, so the keywords are name, animal, place, and thing. Once I get these keywords, it’s only just to add conjunctions, nouns, pronouns, verbs etc to make it a sentence that makes sense. To use “keyword” successfully, you must understand what the main text is talking about so that you can easily paraphrase to your pleasure. NOTE: ALWAYS write your keywords on your answer sheet not the question sheet, so you don’t get accused of mal practice. After you are done with the question, neatly stroke out or erase the keywords, so writing keywords on the answer sheet with pencil is a good way of dong exams.

ANSWER THE QUESTIONS; after understanding the instructions and picking the right questions to answer and jotting down the right keyword, you are good to go. NOTE with keywords, you rarely go out of point to write in the hall. So with all these arsenal, go on to answer your questions. Be mindful of time though, don’t speed all the while writing keywords and marking questions, instead allocate some time to that.

PRAY and commit the questions and exams to God for safety and favour.  

SUBMIT the question paper, don’t ever think you can overwrite or underwrite in the hall. If you are ok with all you have written, then step up and submit the sheet. If you get the privilege of taking the questions home, then do a review and correction , if not try to still see what you can do, doing this will help you know the question better and makes you ready any other time to defend your answers.

Finally thank God for the success of the exams.