With the Leaving and Junior Certificate exams looming, Mairead Murphy, Schools Liaison Officer at Griffith College, has prepared some tips that will assist students when sitting the exams.
There is still plenty of time for final revision but it is vital to prepare properly in other areas such as time management and general exam technique. The tips below are easily followed and will increase students’ confidence at this important time.
Before the exams
Don’t study late into the night: Go to bed early and try to have a healthy breakfast each morning. Staying up all night studying is counter productive and will only serve to hamper your concentration the next day.
Time management: If you learn to manage your time in your studies, this will reflect positively in your exams. Spend 45 minutes maximum on a subject, using sample exam papers to test yourself for an extra 10 minutes. Later, test yourself on a full exam question by giving yourself the time you would expect to spend on an answer in an exam situation. This helps to promote confidence in the exams.
Spice it up!: You are in control of what you study so make it as interesting for yourself as possible. Alternate your subjects regularly and try to study the subjects you find more difficult earlier in the day when you are not quite as tired.
Beware of pet subjects: As the exams get closer, under-pressure students can sometimes rely to heavily on their favourite subjects which they are going to do well in anyway. Ensure that you spend equal time on each subject and maybe allocate a little extra to those that you find particularly challenging.
Familiarise yourself with the layout of the paper in advance: Read all of the instructions carefully to practice for the real exam. Work out in advance how many questions you will need to complete and given the marks that are awarded for the questions, how long you should spend on each answer.
In the exams
Read the entire paper: Where you have choices, decide which ones you plan to answer. Sometimes, in the initial panic, students think they can’t answer any. Take a deep breath and read the paper again. You will begin to see keywords that you recognise and you should start to circle these immediately to boost your confidence.
Plan your answer: Spend some time drafting a plan for the questions you choose to answer and remember there are always marks for rough work! Deal with all elements of the question and give yourself enough time to revise your answer to make sure it refers to the question posed.
Jot down ideas as they come to you: While you are answering one question, information about another may suddenly occur to you. Jot it down somewhere because when you come to that question perhaps an hour later, you may have forgotten it and even rough notes and keywords will be marked.
Don't leave any questions unanswered: If you are short of time, use note form. Remember, you can only be marked on the answers you give. Marks can only be given, they cannot be taken away so give your examiner lots of opportunities to give you plenty of them!
Never leave the room early: If you have time at the end, go over your work, add information (eg in the margin ). You can't return if you suddenly remember a fact after you have left. Time at the end allows you to check that you have followed all of the instructions correctly and answered all of the questions.
