Making a success out of

Exams

Taming the beast and other useful tips

Aims & Objectives

Aims:

To provide learners with a comprehensive knowledge

base of how to tackle higher level exams

Objectives:

After the session, the learner will be able to:

1. Consider why we find exams stressful and identify

potential solutions

2. List a variety of effective revision strategies

3. Describe effective exam performance techniques to get

the most out of your exams

3 Areas to Cover

• Attitude and Managing Stress: Sorting

your head out

• Exam Revision: What works

• Exam Performance: What to do on the day

Session Outline

Attitude & Managing StressSorting Your Head Out

What is Stressful about exams?

Individually, consider how you ‘feel’ about examinations. Note down your

fears, anxieties and worries.

Why we worry so much

about exams…

• We wrongly perceive it as winning and

losing

• Failure is taboo

• Success is elusive

• It is easy to become obsessed with grades

• There is more expectation but less support

• We experience student rivalry

• We can become overwhelmed by our

course reading

And what to do about it…

• Understand yourself – why do I stress?

• Disconnect your self-esteem from your

results

• Work for your goals – and then let them go

• Remember that good enough is good

enough

Getting Some Perspective: The

problem with exams

1. Exams fail to measure student’s real

academic ability

2. Exams don’t measure career aptitude

‘Top exam results don’t necessarily

make people happy or wealthy, and

conversely that poor exam results

don’t necessarily inhibit people’s

ability to succeed in their careers

and personal lives’ (Tracey 2006: 8)

‘In the short term, the difference between a

first, second or third class degree may or

may not help you get a good job. In the long

term, the underlying qualities that make you

who you are play by far the greater part in

determining how you fare in your career.

Certainly, there is no correlation between

the class of degree you get and your future

pay packet.’ (Tracey 2006: 10)

Exam Revision

So what really works?

Good results come from

working wisely. Quite where

the idea of hard work comes

from nobody knows.(Tracey 2006: 15)

In pairs: Think about revision strategies that might be

considered as ‘working wisely’. Make a list of

possibilities and be prepared to feed them back to the

rest of the class.

So what is working wisely?

• Creating a revision timetable

• Working SMARTly

• Knowing the exam paper

• Having a strategy

• Sourcing the information ready

• Keeping study varied and interesting

• Keeping learning active

And what it is not…

• Having a vague plan

• Relying on what you’ve already got

• Having incomplete knowledge of the exam

format

• Studying without direction

• Passive Learning

Examples of Passive Learning

Reading and Rereading

Callender & McDaniel (2009: 39-40):

‘there has been little evidence to challenge the common opinion that rereading, even immediate rereading is an effective way to study a text’

‘readers extract the same representation from the text both times it is read’

‘fluency…is often misunderstood by readers as improved understanding and comprehension’

Examples of Active

Learning

• Re-presenting information – charts, diagrams, wheels, pictograms, Flashcards, Timeline, Mind-mapping

• Summary sheets

• Predicting questions

• SQ3R

• 3R – Read, Recite, Recall

• Keyword Associations

• Essay Planning

• Self-Testing

• Articulation

• Group Study

• Mock Exams

Exam Performance

What to do on the day

Exam performance:

What to do on the day

1. Have a time plan

2. Read the Question(s) carefully

3. Write proportionally

4. Where applicable, write a 5 minute plan

5. Stick to your time plan

6. Keep a cool head

7. Be concerned with yourself, not others

8. Use all the time you’ve been allocated

Exam Feedback

Look at some examples on the handout.

Question: What does this tell you about exam

performance?

Answer: There are only so many ways in

which you can go wrong

Final Thoughts

• Exams are high pressurised situations but are over quickly

• Exams have weaknesses too – this is why we are asked to produce coursework

• There is room for error

• Getting things into perspective can help relieve stress

• Good enough is good enough

• There are only so many ways in which we can go wrong in exams

Aims & Objectives

Revisited

Aims:

To provide learners with a comprehensive knowledge

base of how to tackle higher level exams

Objectives:

After the session, the learner will be able to:

1. Consider why we find exams stressful and identify

potential solutions

2. List a variety of effective revision strategies

3. Describe effective exam performance techniques to get

the most out of your exams

References

• Callender A.A., and McDaniel M.A. (2009) The limited benefits of rereading educational texts. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 34, 30–41.

• McDaniel, M. A., Howard, D.C. and Einstein, G.O., (2009) The Read-Recite-Review Study Strategy: Effective and Portable Psychological Science April 2009 20: 516-522

• Tracey, E., (2002) The student's guide to exam success [e-book] Buckingham: Open University Press. Available through: Keele University Library <http://opac.keele.ac.uk> [Accessed 30 September 2010].

• Cottrell, S., (2008) The study skills handbook. (3rd ed) Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.