HINTS FOR PASSING YOUR EXAMINATION

Passing examinations is something that every student wants, and yet it is only a few students who consistently score good marks.  There may be many reasons for failure or success in exams but definitely the two broad reasons include student's level of preparation and student's exam behavior.

So, first of all, honestly check your reading and study habits.  You will have confidence attending your exam knowing you prepared well.  Nothing can substitute for serious studying.  Being a lazy student and expecting good marks out of your exams is a contradiction.  Secondly, make sure you know how to behave appropriately in the examination room.  Some students fail their exams even if they prepared well, just because they do wrong things during their exams and end up with poor marks.  So you need to be careful even when you feel you are well prepared.

Most students get terrified by the idea of doing an examination. Sadly, even the intelligent students sometimes perform badly because of experiencing what is sometimes referred to as ‘exam fever’, ‘exam phobia’ or 'examination tremor'.  The symptoms of this examination fear include stomach upset, lack of appetite, headaches, sweating, blurred vision et cetera.  But you don’t have to fear exams if you learn and practice helpful ideas on test and exam passing.

The following ideas can be very helpful in changing your examination results:

(a).Avoid engaging yourself in things that may disturb your mind on the exam day eg. Arguing, quarreling, receiving or making calls to people who may disturb you.

(b).Don’t jump into your exam as soon as you receive your paper. You need to calm down first.  You can breathe deeply or whisper a little prayer.  Then read the paper quickly to get the geography of you exam, that is, the general idea of how the exam is set.  Give yourself at least five minutes before attempting any question.

(c).Plan your time appropriately.  Many student fail their exams due to poor timing.  Consider it foolish and irresponsible going into an exam without a watch.  Understand how much time you have for the exam and quickly budget your time between the difficult and the simple questions, between the short answer questions and the long answer or essay questions.  Sometimes you need to divide your time depending on the marks given to the questions.  It would be ridiculous to spend much time or questions allotted fewer marks.

(d).Read the general instructions for the exam as well as the specific instruction for each question carefully.  Understanding the question without following the instructions given for that question is a source of failure for many students.  Be careful and be sure of what you are asked to do.

(e).Make sure plan or outline of how your answer will look like (for essay questions).  Show the key words or important concepts in the question to be sure you are doing what you have been asked to do.  Think of what you will include in your introduction and conclusion.

(f).Answer the question quickly and with enthusiasm.  While writing keep going back to the question so you do not loose track.

(g).If you are puzzled about something or you feel like you are running short of points, you better skip or postpone that question and do another question instead of wasting too much time thinking on any particular question.  Return to the question after finishing the ones you know better.

(h).Review or re-read your answers before submitting.  Leave at least five minutes for checking words you have left out inadvertently, minor errors you have made and mistakes you have made in grammar.