EXAM TIME STRATEGY

Competition has become an inseparable part of our lives and it is the fear of this competition that leaves us feeling unhappy, paranoid and worried. The fear of being put to test can be quite stressful for many people. This affects them adversely and they fail to perform to the best of their ability. Devoid of studying too hard many of the students perform poorly because they adopt non-effective exam strategy. The common failings during exam hours are: Scan the entire exam first. Quickly peruse all questions before starting on any one. You can also sketch out how to allocate your time between questions in the first pass. Prioritizing - what needs to be done first ?-Another frequent error is that some spend too much of their effort on small parts of questions that give only a few marks. Time management- Spend your time wisely .Devoting all their time to one question and not having time to finish a second. Pay attention to specific instructions - But probably the most important failing is that students do not understand what exactly is being asked from them. It says 'discuss' so they only describe, it says 'give examples' but they don't. If you are running out of time never omit a question completely. Give the examiner an outline of how you planned to answer a question/the remainder of the question. Another failing is to just vomit every thing on paper from the course in the hope that it might be relevant - and thereby annoy the examiner with loads of irrelevant stuff. By doing this students just show clearly that they don't know what's relevant and what's irrelevant. For answering Essay/short answer questions: Keep time allocations proportional to marks. Provide definitions where necessary. Identify key concepts. Give examples. Write clearly and simply. For answering Problem solving questions: Write down any formulae needed first. Label all working stages clearly. Check computational accuracy. Before the exam finishes: Re-attempt questions you found too difficult at first. Make sure the examiner can read your answers and diagrams. Save a little time for checking your work. Before handing in your exam, reserve a few minutes to go back over your work. Check for missing initialization/return statements, correct parameters passed to functions, etc. We try not to deduct points for minor things if it is obvious what you meant (i.e. forgot to declare a variable), but sometimes it is difficult to decipher your true intention. You might save yourself a few lost points by tidying up the details at the end. Never leave the exam early. Use spare time to thoroughly check your answers. Make sure your name and ID number are marked clearly on all papers.

Strategy adopted for preparation before exam is equally important as the strategy during exam. If one does not study smartly he will never understand the concept nor would be able to apply it well. A proper routine and technique has to be followed to understand each and every topic well. If a student

prepares a proper study plan , follows a study technique which suits him best and develops a study skill then he can experience best learning outcome. What should be the right approach to be practiced for studying? : Set goals - what do I want to achieve? What do I have to do to make it happen? When does it have to be done by? Set apart a place for study. This should be private, free from noise and other distractions. Set apart some time - perhaps six days a week - for study (see overleaf for an example of how to develop a study timetable). Make a weekly study plan. Revise your work constantly and plan for submission of reports and assignments that may involve several days of work. An "average" student aiming for a pass degree should work a forty-hour week, which includes contact hours and private study. Draw up a daily schedule. How to prepare for the exam: "Open book" doesn't mean "don't study". The exam is open-book/open-notes and you can bring along the reader, your notes from lecture, course handouts, and printouts of all your assignments. We don't expect you to memorize minute details and the exam will not focus on them. However, this doesn't mean you shouldn't prepare. There certainly isn't enough time during the exam to learn the material. To do well, you must be experienced at working problems efficiently and accurately without needing to repeatedly refer to your resources. Practice, practice, practice. A good way to study for the programming problems is to take a problem (lecture or section example, chapter exercise, sample exam problem) and write out your solution under test-like conditions, e.g. on a blank sheet of paper using a pencil with a short amount of time. This is much more valuable than a passive review of the problem and its solution where it is too easy to conclude "ah yes, I would have done that" only to find yourself adrift during the real exam when there is no provided solution to guide you! Get your questions answered. If there is a concept you're a bit fuzzy on, or you'd like to check your answer to a chapter exercise, or you wonder why a solution is written a particular way, get those questions answered before the exam.