Practical Strategies for Acing any Exam
Fortunately, the secret isn’t about studying till you’re a sleep-deprived zombie. Neither do you need to be a prodigy to ace an exam—you just need to work smart. Here are some simple, actionable published tips that will ideally teach us how to deal with a question paper and in return save us the unnecessary stressing:
FIT IT RIGHT
Too long an answer, and you risk losing the examiner’s attention and end up wasting time that will hurt your score on other answers. If it is too short, you risk leaving out essential information. It’s always about finding the right balance and that’s something you should aim at while you start writing.
DO NOT ANSWER AN EXTRA QUESTION
You’ll only sacrifice your own marks, because you’ll have that much less time to finish the rest of your paper. So, stay away responding to that one extra question temptation.
SUBMIT A PRESENTABLE PAPER
It isn’t just about legibility always but it is important that you frame your answer in a way that the most important parts catch the examiner’s eye. These are the parts that will get you the marks.
REVISE THOROUGHLY
Keep at least ten minutes for revision after having finished writing your paper. No matter how well we think our paper has gone, we all make mistakes. A quick ten-minute revision is more than sufficient to spot and rectify those errors.
MANAGE TIME EFFECTIVELY
Put across the most important topics/ideas/arguments/calculations right at the beginning of your answer. Use bullet points and abbreviated sentences, if required. Work your way down the ladder of importance. Don’t leave it hanging … even if you haven’t been able to put in all the points that you wanted to in your answer, spend that last-minute writing a conclusion to wrap it up.
PRIORITISE THE SELECTION OF QUESTIONS
Prioritize the question that is easier to answer and tackle that first. Alternatively, choose answering the question that will fetch you the maximum marks in the minimum possible time.
Even though this is no rocket science, the good part is that it almost always works.
