This is a test
A lot of you people who read this blog are students – as can be ascertained from your confessions of sloppy eating habits, the strange times at which you post Comments, and the amount of time some of you claim to have on your hands. And from what you, and my various Twitter acquaintances, have been saying/tweeting/thinking recently (I have basic level mind-reading skills), there is a lot of worry about exams. June these days means Edinburgh previews, music festivals and international football tournaments to me; it’s easy to forget that only a few years ago, it also meant the paralysing terror of academic failure. And unfortunately by ‘a few years ago’ I mean ‘quite a few years ago’ (sigh). But the memories are still pretty sharp. The grim-faced invigilators. The tense conversations, ‘what did you put for question 14?’ followed by an ominous silence after the answer. The girl in my class who had a nervous breakdown. Those were the days.
I survived that period of my life and it seems only fair to try and pass on what I can remember. So here is one of my occasional lists of tips. This runs the risk of being even more patronising than all my other tips. But throughout my school and uni career I consistently did better in exams than I generally did in everyday work, and as a result I left education with qualifications suggesting I was much brighter than I am. And this is despite being the sort of nervy, easily-overwhelmed person who ought to struggle in the exam room. So here’s my advice for what (as they say) it’s worth. Some of this, by the way, duplicates what I’ve said in previous entries about motivation and so on. But hey. Exams are all about repetition.
1. PAST PAPERS ARE YOUR FRIEND. It’s amazing how much less daunting an exam paper seems when you’ve practiced by doing loads of almost identical ones. From doing this, you learn the lesson that the paper is virtually the same from year to year, and there are certain key facts/principles/theories which you’ll be able to use pretty much whatever the specific questions are. (I admit, I’m only really qualified to talk about arts subjects, not science, but still.) Past papers are normally not too hard to get hold of. Do it.
2. KNOW HOW YOUR BRAIN WORKS. There’s a lot said about ‘getting a good night’s sleep’ beforehand and so on. And of course this is common sense. My best ever exam performance, though, was the Tragedy exam in my finals at uni: the most-hyped, most highly pressured exam in our English course. The night before, I stayed up till 3am revising, knowing that things would stick in my brain that way. I then had five hours’ sleep, got up at 8, drank coffee, looked over stuff again. The exam was at 9. I arrived buzzing with caffeine and feeling like I’d done all the revision in the world in one burst. And it went like a dream.
This WOULD NOT WORK FOR EVERYONE (legal disclaimer). But it worked for me because I knew I was better with a short, sharp work-binge followed by a short sleep. It may also work for you, but if not this, something else might. Think about preparation which works for you, in other words, rather than what people advise. Following on from this…
3. I’ve said this before but DON’T PANIC ABOUT SLEEP. It’s easy to be awake at 4am thinking ‘well this is me screwed, then, I’m not going to sleep properly. I might as well just write FAIL all over my paper now and go off to the amusement arcades’. I didn’t sleep at all the night before my first English A Level exam. By around 3, I was distraught. Then I became resigned to it and thought, fuck it, let’s just do this. I got up and had breakfast early and was raring to go.
Adrenalin is more important than being rested, in an exam situation. It’s all very well going to bed at 9pm with a mug of cocoa and sleeping for ten hours and waking up sharp as a pin, but if you can’t do that, trust your brain to find other ways. An exam is only three, three-and-a-half hours. You can always produce enough adrenalin to get through that. Even with two exams in a day, you can do it. You will sleep soundly the next night. Relax.
4. DON’T TALK TO PEOPLE WHO MAKE YOU UNEASY. Pretty simple tip. But it’s so easy to have what seem like innocuous chats before an exam, ‘what have you revised’, ‘what questions are you hoping for’, which – however accidentally – make you feel like shit. You already know who these people are in your class/set/etc. Avoid them. Before my uni exams I would talk to my best friend, Rachel, and pretty much make a point of ignoring everyone else. You don’t have to be rude. Just don’t get drawn into it. Those last few minutes are much better spent refreshing your memory. Likewise…
5. AFTERWARDS, AGAIN DON’T TALK TO PEOPLE WHO MAKE YOU UNEASY. If there’s one thing worse than Mr Smugly Overprepared, it’s Ms Reallypleasedwithhowitwentactually. After the exam, I strongly advise you to go the pub (if legal) (and assuming no more exams that day). Or talk to someone who didn’t also sit the exam. Do not linger around to hear how everyone thinks they did.
6. TAKE YOUR TIME. Read the paper once all the way through, people always used to advise us at Cambridge. One of my most trusted tutors even recommended taking the first half-hour to read through it and pick questions. It sounded like absolute madness. But I did end up doing it in most of the exams. It takes real guts to sit there thinking and digesting while other people immediately start spewing years’ worth of work onto paper, but you can do a lot worse. Don’t ever allow yourself to be distracted by the person who has her hand up for a new block of paper before you’ve written a word. Bull-in-a-china-shop approaches cost people every year. (Again, this is an English-specific tip. Quite possibly if it’s a Maths exam, you’re best off plunging straight in with question one. But I still say take your time.)
7. GO TO THE TOILET BEFOREHAND. Having said ‘take your time’, you can’t afford the 15 minutes it takes to register your need for the toilet, weigh up whether or not to act on it, put your hand up, leave sheepishly – accompanied by one of those people who make sure you’re not cheating – and then do it and come back and get back into the right frame of mind. Go beforehand. Same advice as for a long car journey, gig, job interview, church service where you are the vicar, stint inside animal costume, virtually every experience in life actually. As well as logistics, there’s also the psychosomatic benefit. Judicious pre-exam pooing can probably up your mark by 1-2%. I include ladies in this possibly unpopular but useful advice.
8. FUCKED UP? START AGAIN Again, a piece of advice for things like English or History. If you’re twenty minutes into an answer and think ‘actually, this is shit’, it is not a bad idea to start a new question, rather than ploughing on and thinking ‘well, I can’t go back now, I’ll just keep writing and hope my argument suddenly makes sense’. A good, short answer can be just as good as a longer less focused one.
9. WITH ESSAY QUESTIONS, THE ANSWER IS USUALLY ‘ON ONE HAND, YES; BUT ON THE OTHER HAND, NO’. You can have that for free. Remember to credit me in the margin.
10. IF IT GOES WRONG, YOU WILL NOT DIE. At Cambridge I really screwed up the first of my five Part 1 exams and I was absolutely gutted. That night I said to my (always incredibly chilled) roommate: ‘what’s going to happen if tomorrow’s one goes like that as well?’ He said ‘well, I suppose the sky will fall in’. This small remark gave me a helping of the necessary perspective. Exams are huge things but they’re not as big as they can feel, trust me. And remember, particularly if you’re doing your A Levels, this is as tough as it will ever get. University exams can be pretty exacting, but nothing compares to the feeling that your future is in some way at stake. So just grit your teeth and reward yourself afterwards. Life is about to get less unpleasant, no matter what your results.
Good luck!
Posted by Knox on July 8, 2011
i’m keeping all of this for when i go back to uni (please God!) next year. i’m a horrendous student, but a lucky one too, in terms of doing ok on not too much study, and not stressing out too much most of the time. definitely good stuff to keep in mind though, especially as, despite it all, i really do hate exams (i have an awful memory).
Posted by Madeleine on June 11, 2010
Thanks for the excellent advice – We have the exams that go towards our “OP”, which is your “overall position”, which decides what courses you can get in to and such, every term in grade 12 in Queensland, so its not that mad dash of everything riding on one batch of exams, which is good and bad, because you have to keep up a good effort all year. I generally go alright, because I study a bit and work hard all year, which is severly uncool of course, and sometimes I have to take a moment and go- I want to do arts! This doesn’t matter at all! But I’m much to competitive to not try.
Also – “GO TO THE TOILET BEFOREHAND” is my life motto.
Thanks again, feeling good about my first exam next week, even though it’s history and sure to be a bitch.
Posted by Headlines – 11th June « BrittPop.com on June 11, 2010
[...] Mark Watson’s guide to exam success Because when I’m looking for advice, I always turn to thirty year-old comedians. That’s not even a joke. It’s a stressful time of year for everyone, and this blog post contains some really good tips for helping you survive exam time. [...]
Posted by Laurs on June 10, 2010
Thanks for this blog Mark, I showed it to my kids at school who were panicking about their GCSE English exam this afternoon and they were very relieved to hear that all the things I’d been telling them to do were confirmed by someone else!
Good luck to all those still doing exams!
Posted by Kate B on June 10, 2010
Exams are terrifying times so thank you for all the advice!
Posted by Anji on June 10, 2010
This makes me realise I left school a long time ago! I picked college and uni courses that didn’t involve exams – although I did do an a level in English lit, and somehow passed.
I took the stance of telling everyone I did rubbish and would probably have to resit everything, just to shut everyone up asking me. Ok so I had to put up with a few comments that weren’t helpful, but figure that’s all part of exams!!
Good luck everyone – you’ll all do fab, Mark’s tips are spot on – hindsight really can be useful when passing on to others!
Posted by Lydia on June 10, 2010
I just finished taking my AS exams today, so the last point definitely applies. Especially since I completely fucked it up.
Another bit of advice I would give is that if you have a messed up table, sort it out before the exam starts. I have had one of those weird sloping tables sloping AWAY from me in one of my exams, and I didn’t do anything about it because I’m stupid and didn’t want to draw attention to myself. Trying to do an exam while holding into your paper so it doesn’t slip away from you is not helpful. The only good thing about it was the exam was general studies so it didn’t matter anyway.
Posted by Heather on June 10, 2010
I really enjoyed reading this advice. Which I think maybe makes me a bit odd, since I been out of uni for three years, have no definite plans to go back, and am in fact hoping to never write another exam in my life. This is quite similar to how I read any “tips for writers” pieces I come across, despite having no desire to ever become a writer.
Anyway, it was a very enjoyable blog entry as always, and good luck to anyone who is studying for their exams!
Posted by louisel on June 10, 2010
Thank you for this, I’m doing my GCSEs (13 down, 6 left!) and I’ll definitely remember your advice
The past paper thing is so true, I’ve got a maths exam tomorrow *shudder* and I’m just doing loads of past papers and trigonometry past questions (ew). I hope it pays off …
I totally agree with you on number 4. I have to avoid a few people around exams: one because her pre-exam ritual is to panic, claw at people and recite facts; and the other because he’s scarily intelligent and likes to do a question-by-question dissection of the paper straight afterwards as everyone sobs quietly, adamant that they’ve failed …
Posted by deanna on June 10, 2010
dear mark,
i’m stealing this advice and passing it off as my own to my many students who have mocks coming up in a month’s time. OK?
Thanks
Deanna xx
Posted by Laura on June 10, 2010
God, I feel old.
Posted by issey on June 10, 2010
I finished my exams on monday so i’m pretty happy now (if still a little hung over) It’s great being able to laze about not doing anything in particular + not have that niggle in the back of your mind saying ‘revise revise, you should be revising’ (said in a sort of gollum voice). Good luck to everyone still to do exams!
Posted by glamlovinkitty on June 10, 2010
Can I just say, too, as the person in my university who manages the disciplinary process – don’t, however bleak you think things are, try to sneak notes into an exam. In this last two weeks I’ve had to deal with 11 students who sneaked in tiny tiny notes, or had pencil scribbles inside dictionaries, or whatever. Every one of them has been awarded a fail with no opportunity to resit and this effectively means they are finished here.
Dont do it. You’ll always get busted. Even if you don’t do well in an exam, you’ll usually get the chance to resit it. Which is a lot better than trying to cheat, and then not getting to resit it.
Posted by Lauren on June 10, 2010
Great advice as usual Mark! I just wish you had posted this four weeks ago when i was sitting my Highers
*fingers crossed* ..
I always run off after exams and avoid everyone as I totally freak out when friends ask what answers i wrote – as I usually write something completely different. But like you i never done any science subjects so everyones answer is always different when it comes to essays
Anyway despite these not being of any use to me the now since my exams are all over (yay!) – i’ll keep them in mind if i get into uni in september
Posted by max on June 10, 2010
Everything always works out.
I got a 2.5/10 on my first ever university exam. I was crushed and actually thought I was too stupid for that. Luckily I persisted.
My personal best, though, was a 2/100 on an organic chemistry exam. But that’s a long story… so I laughed at that dismal performance rather than feel bad about it
Actually, the way I see it, failing miserably in an exam is liberating. Kind of the same way you feel the first time a girl says NO to you. You realize you failed, yet the world keeps on turning.
Fear of failure is much worse than the actual thing; there’s always a re-sit (or a different girl) to take.
One funny story happened to me before a physics exam. As usual, me and my friends were not exactly very prepared for it so we were doing past exams like crazy until 2 minutes before the start.
When we got our exams, one of the questions was EXACTLY the one we had gone through 5 mins ago (it was a 3 Q exam, so nailing one was having almost half the exam done).
Posted by Simon on June 10, 2010
Mark – I’m like you in that my exam results suggest I’m much cleverer than I really am. I’m just very good at “playing the game”.
As some people have already said, Tip #1 (about past papers) is ABSOLUTELY relevant to science students as well as arts. A large proportion of my revision time is devoted to looking at every single past paper available and searching for patterns. You’re often lucky enough to notice identical or near-identical questions being asked year after year and it just becomes a case of learning the standard answer.
A technique I employ that other science students may find useful is doing several “passes” of the exam paper. It works like this:
Look at question 1. If you know straight away how to answer it, do so. Otherwise, leave a blank page in the answer booklet and look at question 2. Keep doing this until you reach the end of the exam paper.
You’ll have answered all the really easy questions and you’ll feel good about it. Now do the same, but raise the difficulty threshold and allow yourself to think more carefully about what you can and can’t answer. Do a second pass of the exam paper with this in mind. When you’re done, raise the threshold again, allowing yourself even more time to think about how to approach the problem. You can afford the thinking time because you’ve already got a strong foundation of high-confidence answers in the bank.
Keep doing passes of the exam paper until you run out of time.
It hasn’t failed me yet!
Posted by Corey on June 10, 2010
Not exam advice but a little exam story:
During a history exam I think it was GCSE time, we were all lined up at our exam desks in the main hall, and we had the most evil lady teacher you could imagine keeping watch over us for the 2 hours we had to do it in.
She could easily have sit still at her desk for her time there, but she insisted on walking round the room for the first hour non stop, which would have been fine had it not been for she had chosen this exam to wear ‘high heels’ for the first time, so every step she took made quite an off putting noise for an entire hour in an otherwise quiet room.
I saw a few people getting frustrated with it and she loved it, until a lad gets up walks out the exam straight to the headmistresses office, who came down and removed the ‘evil’ teacher, told her to go to the staff room and she took the exam.
She then had to walk past us all not looking best pleased, and one witty fellow made ‘shoe clopping’ noises as she left a bit like ‘Jonesey’ in Police Academy.
Good luck exam takers, you’ll do fine, and if you don’t…..its nothing nothing to panic about!
Posted by helen (@iamanicelady) on June 10, 2010
I think it helps to see exams as an annoying yet necessary hurdle to get to wherever you want to be in life. Even if you don’t have a specific career in mind yet, chances are that you’ll need to be clutching some kind of exam certificate to get to wherever you want to end up.
And anyway, exams are supposed to be hard. Frankly, I’m glad that I couldn’t come even remotely close to passing a driving test at the moment, if I could it would bode very badly for many (or in fact very few, as I would no doubt encounter a lamppost within a few minutes behind the wheel). Even if it feels like it, exams don’t last forever, by all means work really hard and get amazing results. But try and keep a bit of perspective that your exam results aren’t the single most important thing about you. There are other things, like how nice a person you are and whether you’re prepared to eat my cooking even when it’s really really bad,
Oh, and the kind of people that Mark mentions in points 4 and 5 are really the most terrible kind of people. I wouldn’t even so much offer them a pat on the head, let alone an experimental bran and carrot muffin that I’m attempting tomorrow…
xx to y’all
Posted by DeborahF on June 10, 2010
It’s a really long time since I sat an exam – they don’t give you many as an art student but I did learn to weld instead. Strangely though I can still remember a question on my A-level English Lit exam it was…
“King Lear a man more sinned against than sinning. Discuss”
Can’t remember what I waffled but it can’t have been that bad as I passed. Wonder if that’s turned up any exam papers this year :s
Posted by A lot of Rach[a]els on June 10, 2010
I’ve just finished my part 1 uni exams and get my results on Monday eek! I’m usually pretty determined with exams but really couldn’t be bothered this year. The fact that we got told “these exams don’t matter etc” every time we had an exam meeting made me think well I won’t bother then which is terrible as I still need 40% at least. So in my 2 week exam period I went to Manchester and 5 comedy shows. Including getting stranded in London with 2 exams the next day. Terrible student. But I know who to blame if I don’t get 40%: the comedians who haven’t toured for 5 years and when they do it’s during May! (joking – I do take all responsibility)
But I do agree with your tips especially past papers and looking at module answers got me through my A-levels. They repeat the Qs every couple of years and each essay has a specific structure and if you do it right you can get perfect score. For example, January a-level psychology exam I got 50% as we hadn’t been told the structures, I went to another teacher, leanr the structure so re-took the exam and got 100%. Boom. And I also memorised A grade answers from previous years and learnt so much from them I could write pretty similar in the exams and I walked away with AAB for a-levels.
Posted by Idris on June 10, 2010
MARK WATSON RULES!
That’s a way of saying thanks. And CAMBRIDGE. You Da Man
Posted by Amy H on June 10, 2010
Hullo,
My first comment too! Been reading awhile, but not spoken up yet – I even for those of us beyond the exams, they still conjure up the same vague sense of panic followed by oh-wait-it’s-not-me-thank-goodness rush of sympathy for the people doing them.
I completely agree with all your tips; the one slightly cynical one I would add is to see how much you realistically need to revise for each exam. It’s tough to remember every single lecture, or remember all the chapters of a core textbook in detail. If you know there are three questions, and the course was broken down into six modules, you can probably get away with drilling yourself on four of those if you’re stuck for timen(obviously three, at a push, but you want some choice, right?!)
Good luck to everyone still undertaking them, think Mark’s old roommate has the sentimental side covered. Not long ’til they’re done!
Posted by Steph on June 10, 2010
Thank you Mark. This blog has saved me.
Not so much the revision tips but just the general things-will-look-up feeling. The first of 7 A level exams started today (well, technically yesterday). It went well, although I was expecting this as it will probably turn out to be the easiest of all.
There is definitely someone I need to avoid. The only thing is she is on twitter. Do I un-follow then re-follow later on? I just can’t stand any more of her incessant tweets about how many hours revision she got done today. Makes me feel bad.
Will this really be as tough as it’s going to get? I sincerely hope so. I’m going to be a wreck the night before results day.
For #6 – Take Your Time. This is sensible but with Maths and Chemistry I really need to get stuck in.
One last thing…so it’s really OK that I’m still up at midnight? This isn’t bad going actually, I’ve been staying uo till like half 2 some nights. I just hate revising at 10 in the morning!
Thanks again, you godsend
Posted by Kate W on June 9, 2010
Excellent advice there. I think the point about knowing what works for you is particularly important, because people learn in very different ways and works for friends won’t necessarily work for you. I’ve always been a last-minute crammer and tended to condense revision notes down to a couple of sides of A4/few index cards that I could read over and over the night before and on the morning of the exam (still do that with interviews). For me, that was a really effective way to jam facts/quotes/references into my short-term memory, but I can imagine might panic other people who want to be more prepared in advance.
On a similar note, I sometimes found that knowing less helped the exam go better. Sounds odd, I know, but my Shakespeare paper was the one I really knew and I spent so long looking at questions and thinking about which one I could give the best answer to, then trying to cram too much into each essay, that it didn’t go that well. On the 18th century paper, I literally only had three things I could write; I wrote them, they were structured, I made all the points I’d learned and ended up with a much better mark.
Two final thoughts for essay-based people; allocate your time per question and stick to it. It’s not worth spending ages writing a brilliant answer to the first question if it means racing through the last and not saying enough to get the marks. Equally, it’s worth spending 5 minutes writing an outline of what you want to say for each question. Firstly it’ll help you structure your essay and not wander from the point, and secondly we were always told that if we ran out of time completely, it was possible to get some credit for an outline/headings of what we’d intended to say.
Posted by fuzzy_ducky (Laura) on June 9, 2010
If I follow all of these rules… and still fail… im gonna blame u
haha 
Posted by Chris on June 9, 2010
I finished all mine a couple of weeks ago now, so all I can do is wish anybody sitting exams the best of luck (that is what it comes down to, that and how much work you have really done).
and that wishing is all I can do to help today.
Posted by Helen on June 9, 2010
I found that really very useful. Right in the middle of Alevels at the moment, so this advice couldn’t have come at a better time, specially as all my subjects involve essays. Thank You! x
Posted by Daniel on June 9, 2010
Thanks! Better tips than you get from exam boards. Fucking OCR… I’m fine
Posted by h2osarah on June 9, 2010
I wrote my (most likely) last exam ever at the end of April this year. A lot of the essay-question style stuff doesn’t work for science exams, but the past papers/don’t talk to dicks stuff still applies. I find that I need my sleep before an exam and would rather have the extra hour sleeping than revising. My exams were a lot of stupid memory work and with extra sleep, I always found that my ability to remember specific terms and mechanisms increased a lot.
They do say that if you’ve been up for 19 hours, it’s equivalent to being over the legal limit of alcohol. So that might be something to consider…
Posted by Ally on June 9, 2010
Thank you so much for the helpful hints! Reading stuff like this always calms me down before exams. And I have one in… 5 hours. Back to my last minute revision!
Posted by Lisa brunders on June 9, 2010
I’m very glad my exam-taking is a long way behind me.
But I just wanted to say GOOD LUCK to all of you who are still taking them.
Posted by MusicalLottie on June 9, 2010
1, 6 and 8 all apply to maths / science:
I think number 1 even more so than to the arts because the sciences are mostly all about knowing formulae and applying them. Past papers are vital because you can get to know what specific formulae / words / phrases get the marks.
Number 6 for the sciences probably would be modified to ‘skim through the paper’ so you have a rough idea of how to manage your time, and what sort of questions ill be coming up, and maybe to get the easiest ones done first, leaving plenty of time for the big questions.
Number 8 OH MY GOODNESS YES, especially for maths – if you’ve gone down a line of algebraic reasoning that’s just going in circles, for example, start again and try a different approach.
Josh’s point about having a laugh and getting rid of some of the stress is great. It really works for me; during the half an hour before A levels my friends and I would just give up on revision and sit and chat. Now before interviews or anything else stressful I just distract myself immediately beforehand, clearing the fog inevitably caused by extreme nerves.
Posted by Gabi on June 9, 2010
Had the first one today, and the talking to stressors seems the best thing. When your on your own, no need to panic, though bringing others into the equation makes you doubt yourself. Have 4 left so fingers crossed. Really really helpful blog. Thank you!!
Posted by Ivan on June 9, 2010
If only I’d read this blog three years ago. Really helpful and very supportive. Thanks Mark! I’ve now finished and am NO LONGER A STUDENT!!
Feels good. Feels liberating. Feels scary and real-life-ish. I want to go home now.
Posted by Linsey on June 9, 2010
As I’m currently waiting for my A Levels to be over, this blog is a particular heaven for me. Number 9 is actually spot on. I’m going to go and revise now, I’ll come up for air on the 30th (hopefully with a very large drink as well).
Hope everyone’s revision is going alright, and I wish you all luck! xx
Posted by Rachael on June 9, 2010
Next time i have an exam i will remember this, hopefully that wont be too soon though.
Posted by Tom Beasley on June 9, 2010
Definitely useful advice there. I am doing A Levels next year and so I will certainly bear all of those tips in mind.
As my school has a really odd curriculum (that makes Year 11 an odd year), I did GCSEs last summer and thus I know a bit about exam pressures. I found that past papers were what got me through my GCSEs. For me, they are without doubt the best way to revise.
Posted by Alex on June 9, 2010
Wish this had come two weeks earlier…
Loved the “I guess the sky will fall in” comment though. True to form my results so far have been massively inconsistent (first in the last one, 2.2 today). But hey, the sky hasn’t fallen in. Quite. There’s a HELL of a lot of stuff falling out of it though. My street has been replaced by a river complete with eddies.
Posted by Tim Richards on June 9, 2010
I’m in the hell you just described right now, panicking over lack of revision, lack of sleep etc etc. Sadly my maths, physics and economics exams aren’t really in the “take your time” ballpark, more throw up 2 years worth of work onto a paper in 1hr and 30mins. Great advice otherwise.
Btw I’ve been reading your blog for quite a while now, but this is my first comment. Woop woop!!!
Posted by lisan66 on June 9, 2010
I just started my Leaving Cert(Ireland) today, and this ahs really calmed me down. I’m one of those people who normally have a nervous breakdown the night before each exam, but i actually done all that yesterday and am so much more relaxed now. My advice is if you’re really nervous get it all out in one blow (I screamed at my mam for about a half hour). It works wonders. Good luck to everyone else doing exams at the moment!
Posted by Beth on June 9, 2010
I’ve got a philosophy exam on friday, and this blog has really helped to calm me down. I’ve been panicking so much about what I don’t know, and what will happen if I fail etc that I’ve got myself into a massive nervous wreck.
I agree with the “it’s ok to not have much sleep” theory – I can cope quite well on just a few hours with the help of coffee and red bull. My philosophy exam is at 9am so, I’m hoping that cramming into the night and lots of red bull in the morning will mean that I’ll do ok.
So, thanks Mark, this blog really helped! If I do do well on friday (we’ll find out in August) I’ll be giving you some of the credit!
Posted by Gareth on June 9, 2010
Enormously wise advice, as usual. I only had one exam this year and was careful to do the reading-through-the-whole-paper-first trick. Time will tell whether it has paid off. I’ve always been a slow worker and remember coming out of exams when I was an undergrad and hearing people claim to have written 32 sides in 3 hours where I would have written about 6 or 7. Firstly, it has been statistically proven that these people are generally major-league dicks; and secondly, I always did OK on the exams, which proves beyond all doubt that it’s not length that matters, it’s quality. That’s even truer in relation to exams than it is in relation to, ah, other things. All the best to those with exams still to come this year. Self-belief and not falling asleep in the exam. Let those be your watchwords.
Posted by Misha on June 9, 2010
Any advice for people doing essay based subjects with the handwriting of a pissed toddler? (I’m not entirely joking here, my handwriting /is/ that bad)
Interestingly i’ve found exams easier with last minute revision and running on adrenaline, something which annoys the hell out my best friend who’s probably been revising for her a-levels since september. So I suppose it is a case of just doing what works for you.
Now I’ve just got to work out how to sleep for the next week so I don’t have another failure like today (dozed off half an hour before I was meant to leave for the bus, woke up at “home time”) and it’ll be fine. I think.
Posted by Jen on June 9, 2010
Number 9 interests me. In high school, for SAT prep (SATs = the States’ big determiner for which college we get into) we were taught never to answer ‘yes and no’ on an essay — always pick a side and stick with it. I’m wondering whether this is because in high school you’re not encouraged to give complex answers or whether this is a cultural thing. America has a bit of a reputation for seeing even complicated things in black and white, I know. I tend to see things in shades of grey anyway, so I end up picking the side I remember the most examples in defense of.
Posted by (Magnificent) Josh on June 9, 2010
And if anyone points out that maybe the best thing I could be doing for my exam tomorrow is revising, then I’ll…. cry….
Posted by (Magnificent) Josh on June 9, 2010
My best piece of advice would be to not be too sensible just before the exam. It’s all very well thinking to yourself “Right, so, exam, I need carbohydrates and protein and I must remember to drink plenty of water” but at the end of the day it’s likely to just stress you out a lot more than, for example, “Fuck it, I’m having sweets for lunch again”.
I find that by doing little stuff like this you get rid of all that panicky panicky stigma. Just take it easy and remember that all you’re trying to do is prove to someone who’s never met you that you listen in class.
My second tip is to start at the back of the paper and work forward. There’s nothing better than sitting there knocking off 1 markers while everyone else is scribbling through a 5 marker. Again, it demystifies the whole thing.
So I guess my overall advice is THINK OF IT AS A QUITE AFTERNOON IN WHICH YOU HAVE SOME PAPERWORK TO DO. Delusional? Maybe. But at least you won’t cry.
As for me, AS History retake tomorrow, A2 History next week, had AS Physics today and A2 Music Tech in 2 weeks time. History might go horribly…
Posted by fuzzy_ducky (Laura) on June 9, 2010
Now Mark, if you had written this on.. say.. the 27th of May, it would have done wonders
But well, they were only Summer exams… nothing too bad..
Next year though…. Oh boy.. Leaving Cert (Ireland) Oh the joys..
Before September comes around… any chance of study tips/guidelines…
Next year is the second half of a marathon (so my english teacher says) so I want to be well prepared for what I should do to keep up the pace needed.
Cheers
When I’m a millionaire, I’ll pay some scientist to find out how people can sell the time they don’t need, so you can buy some 
Posted by Iona on June 9, 2010
I (like Rosanna) have history tomorrow (bad times) but it’s by last exam! (very good times)
I like the advice. Past papers are so useful, especially for science subjects. For biology at least some of the mark schemes are a bit random and it helps to have an idea what they look for by looking at old ones. Though I did a maths paper the day before one of my exams that I couldn’t do and it stressed me out a lot for the exam. Though in the end it made the actual exam seem easier (lots of my friends found it really hard but I thought it was ok compared to the one I’d just done).
I also agree about the not talking to stressful people. Before an exam (in the queue to go in) I generally just talk to my friend and we have a laugh, not even thinking about the exam: if you don’t know it then, you never will.
However, I think sleep is important, for me at least, because a couple of weeks ago I didn’t sleep well before my exams and then in the exam I couldn’t remember all the info as easily as I could when well rested. But the exam went ok in the end.
Posted by DizzyDoo on June 9, 2010
Hey Mark, commenting for the second ever time, fantastic. Loving this post, though I could never do the “read through the exam paper before you answer” but perhaps that technique is more for you English people.
Just thought I’d also link you to one of my TYSIC projects that otherwise you’d never hear about. I’ve written a game. It’s about a penguin trying to escape the devastation caused by mankind’s industrialisation. It is here if you want to view it with your eyes: http://tundragame.tumblr.com/
Your blog is wonderful, by the way.
Posted by Aislinn on June 9, 2010
This is brilliant. I wish when I was in high school/doing exams(/generally still now a little bit) I had you as one of those cool family friends who you call an uncle but who isn’t and who comes round all the time and tells you funny, reassuring things. Number 9 made me laugh a bit too loudly.
Posted by Rosanna on June 9, 2010
Thanks for the advice. Got history (AS) tomorrow and I haven’t done any revision but that’s mainly because I don’t care about it at all and I’m dropping it next year and I REALLY hate it. All of my friends finish tomorrow or have already finished but i’ve still got a couple of weeks to go.
Didn’t know it was such a help with essay subjects but past papers are the only ways to revise for maths. They are very good friends of mine at the moment.
Posted by Kathryn on June 9, 2010
Thanks for the advice! Especially about the sleep- I seem to get four hours at most the night before a morning exam, I don’t yet know what effect this has had on my marks.
Of course, this being Northern Ireland, most of my Alevels are now over. But it’s good advice nonetheless. It’s very easy to freak out completely that my entire future is at stake. Even typing that sentence led to a small panic attack.
Good luck to everyone whose exams are still going/ just starting.
Posted by Adam on June 9, 2010
I’ve got my last exam of my first year at uni tomorrow morning. I only really went to one or two lectures and don’t know much at all about global economic history. I’ve only just discovered I’ve got to answer three essays in two hours.
However..
I’m totally calm and relaxed about it. My logic is, I’ll do a few hours reading and I’m sure I’ll be fine. My biggest tip is to relax (I’m aware how difficult this is for some people). I think someone who’s calm going into an exam, particularly and essay type one, will do much better than somebody thats a wreck, worried about every question that could come up, running out of time etc.
This might not really work for everyone though, maybe Mark is one of them.
Posted by Rachel on June 9, 2010
You have no idea how much I needed this tonight. A girl sat next to me in my English Language exam on Tuesday started writing before reading the text which kind of panicked me…but she also went against everything we’ve ever been told in class… And because I write small I always panic when my friends compare how many pages they wrote. Bring on Thurasday 24th when I’m finished (’til September)
Posted by rachel (pandora) on June 9, 2010
i’ve just finished my university finals, and i’m SO happy i never have to do an exam again. good luck to anyone who’s got exams coming up, follow mark’s excellent advice, and you’ll be fab. it’ll all be over soon!