There is no denying that there is a direct relation between how well course material was studied and the overall marks obtained - all students know this. There is, however, another aspect of writing exams that is often overlooked: How exam questions are approached - and answered.
The art of answering questions is not often thought of as a skill that has to be mastered. Therefore, when exam marks and the effort spent studying seem to have little to no correlation, many students assume that they should have simply studied harder. Most cases can benefit from studying a bit harder, but no matter how well course material was studied, if questions are not answered correctly or fully, exam marks will not reflect how well you understand the material.
Here are a few practical tips that will improve how you answer exam questions:
1. Ignore the question; look at that mark allocation.
Students are, naturally, most concerned about whether or not they are able to answer the exam questions. So, the first thing that an anxious student does is look at the question.
Relieved that they know the answer they start answering immediately - without sparing a second to look at the mark allocation.
The first thing that should be done, when faced with an exam question, is to look at the mark allocation.
If you do not know how much the question counts, you will rarely write down enough to fully answer the exam question.
Do you need to list three things (for three marks) or five things (for five marks)? Do you need to write down only the definition (for one mark) or give an example (for two marks) too? You would not know unless you gave careful consideration to the mark allocation before answering the question.
Many students understand their study material better than their marks show in exams, simply because they pay no attention to the mark allocation.
Once the mark allocation has been considered, then the question can be broken down into its parts and answered fully.
2. Go on a scavenger hunt for marks.
Once you have paid close attention to the mark allocation, move on to studying the question itself.
Read the question carefully and highlight the important points. Make a scavenger hunt of the question by doing your best to see where you will be able to find all of the marks that are indicated in the mark allocation.
Taking this approach to reading and deciphering a question will help ensure that you do not miss anything needlessly.
3. Spend time answering each question well.
Many students are so nervous when they write exams that they either rush through their questions as quickly as humanly possible or they take too long answering a small handful of questions and don’t have enough time to answer the rest.
That begs the question: How much time should I spend on each question?
The answer is simple really. Do a quick calculation to see how much time you can spend on each question.
If you divide the amount of time you have to complete the exam (in minutes) by the total marks of the exam, you will get the amount of time you have per mark.
If you multiply the time you have per mark by how many marks a question counts, you will have the amount of time that you can spend on that specific question.
For example:
You have 2 hours (or 120 minutes) to complete a 100 mark exam, that means that you will have 1,2 minutes for each mark.
If you have a question worth 5 marks, multiply 1,2 with 5 and you will find that you have 6 minutes to answer the question.
Doing this will give you a good idea how much time to spend on each question in the exam. This will help you learn how to spend your time well, instead of staying stuck on one question or rushing through each question as though you were trying to win a race.
If you apply these three tips, you will likely see a more accurate representation of the time and effort you put into studying when your exam marks are released.
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