Exam technique

Information and guidance on how to prepare for your exam.

Exams are a unique kind of challenge. After university, it's rare for people to sit another exam.

But that doesn't mean you won't find yourself in a pressurised situation where you must produce or recall a lot of information and explain your understanding.

Pressurised situations can bring out the best in us: they focus attention, force us to prioritise our work and make sure we properly rank our knowledge in terms of relevance. But their intensity can lead to stress, which can have a negative effect on your performance.

Feeling a degree of stress about your exams is completely normal and is a positive marker that you are invested in your learning. However, it's important to make sure that your stress levels feel manageable and don't impact negatively on your wellbeing.

The more informed and better prepared you are, the more able you'll be to cope with the stress of exams. See the SSiD Exam Worries pages for tips on how to stay on top of things in the run-up to your exams. 

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Our Essay Based Exam Technique workshop will consider exams from the examiner's perspective to identify the key things they are trying to test in your answer. It will look at the technique of breaking down the exam question, focus on some simple organisational techniques, and conclude by identifying ways to overcome the challenges of time and stress.

This Short/MCQ Exam Technique workshop will look at the short answer or MCQ exam as a process or timeline and identify the key stages that will give you the best chance of getting the marks that you deserve, ways to plan your time in the exam, how to analyse the question, how to answer the exam paper strategically, and conclude by identifying ways to overcome the challenges of time and stress.

Like any form of exam, exams are designed to test your knowledge about a module's content. Exams are a special case, however. The testing takes place in a relatively artificial and controlled environment that involves other people, whose ways of working might be distracting.

Each exam has specific regulations about location, duration, access to resources and question format, amongst other things. You can find out more about your exam locations and requirements at the SSiD Exam Information pages.

If your exams are taking place online, you can find out more about taking online exams here. 

What do you do first when the clock starts in an exam? Start scribbling furiously? Or take some time to breath, check the exam paper and prepare yourself for what is ahead? It may feel as though those around you are already busy writing, but it can be helpful to have a good plan in place for your exam and not rush straight into it. 

Things you may want to consider including in your plan are:

Examiners don't want you to write everything you know. Instead, they want to see that you have critically engaged with the set question. You might want to use the Essay-Based Exam Planner (pdf. 422kb) to think about how to organise your exam answers. 

Watch this short Study Skills Hacks video for tips and strategies on how to get the most out of yourself in an exam.

University exams will often involve writing a short essay on a topic. This tests not only your recall of facts and information, but also your ability to understand and explore concepts and ideas.

Writing an essay under the time pressure of an exam can be challenging. It requires careful planning and organisation in order to set out your thoughts clearly.

Have a look at the information below for some tips on how to get the most out of yourself in an essay-based exam.

Exam questions usually involve a prompt word that dictates the structure and approach required in the essay. Pay attention to the prompt word and it will make the job of planning and structuring your essay much easier.

The following is by no means a comprehensive list, but covers the most commonly used essay prompt words:

Identify and examine closely the component parts of a… (e.g. situation, model, theory)

Present a case for and/or against acknowledging the strengths and weaknesses of both sides

Examine qualities, or characteristics, emphasising similarities, although differences may be mentioned

Stress dissimilarities, differences, or unlikeness of things, qualities, events, or problems

Make a judgement about the value of… and support it with evidence (may be positive or negative)

Examine an argument, give reasons for and against; consider its wider implications 

Present an authoritative and, to a lesser extent, personal appraisal of the advantages and limitations

Focus on the "how" or "why", emphasising the conditions that give rise to whatever you are examining

Prove or show grounds for decisions. In such an answer, evidence should be presented in convincing form

Give an organised description, presenting the information in a systematic way

Analyse and comment briefly in organised sequence upon the major points of the problem

Give the main points or facts in condensed form, omitting details, illustrations and elaboration

Spending time planning the content and structure of your exam answer will be an investment that will pay off when you start writing.

Having a skeleton structure planned out will make it much easier to organise the detail and make sure you stay on topic and answer the question.

To make a quick and easy plan for an exam answer, try using this exam answer planning template (pdf. 422kb). This is a process that you can easily replicate in exam conditions.

Try using this planning technique in your revision to practise organising your thoughts around the topics and sub-topics of a module.

Some subjects will involve multiple-choice question (MCQ) exams. These can take different formats, so make sure you know which one your exam will follow.

Find out if it involves negative marking, which is sometimes known as the guessing correction. If this is the case, make sure you understand when it's worth making an informed guess.

As with any other exam, read the instructions carefully before you begin and identify how long you can spend on each question or section.

This strategy will help you to get the most out of yourself in an exam with time pressure. It will allow you to target the quickest and easiest marks first, so you know how much time you have left to tackle the harder questions later on.

Follow the below steps:

Take care not to miss any questions out and never leave an exam early!

This strategy helps you to avoid being confused or distracted by incorrect options and to make positive and confident choices:

Your first impression is often your best friend for a few important reasons:

Watch out for: answers that are worded similarly but with different meanings. This can be extremely common in MCQ exams, so make sure you read the question carefully and select the correct answer.

Watch this short Study Skills Hacks video on multiple-choice exams for tips and strategies to help make the most of your time in a multiple-choice exam.

Bar Exam Alternative Proposal Goes to the Supreme Court—Along With Questions

https://www.law.com/therecorder/2023/12/18/bar-exam-alternative-proposal-goes-to-the-supreme-court-along-with-questions/

NEWS

The state bar's top executive said "100%" of the so-called portfolio bar exam's startup costs would be covered by a philanthropic group. But questions remain about who might pay the bills and what the bar will have to do to get the money.

December 18, 2023 at 09:50 PM

4 minute read

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California’s state bar asked the state Supreme Court on Friday to authorize a controversial law licensing pilot program even as the specifics for its funding and operations remain unsettled.

In a Dec. 15 letter to the court, bar executive director Leah Wilson wrote that the agency “has secured a commitment from the Legal Services Funders Network to fund 100 percent” of the start-up costs for the so-called portfolio bar exam pilot, which would allow a small group of law school graduates to forego the bar exam and obtain their law licenses through supervised employment and graded work displays.

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