Examination Techniques
Every year, students lose more marks to poor technique than to poor English. Technique can be fixed in a week.
The four failures that cost most marks
Almost every avoidable loss of marks in an English paper falls into one of these four.
- Not answering the question that was asked. The student answers a question they prepared for, or answers half of a two-part question.
- Running out of time. A long, careful answer to question two, and nothing at all for question four.
- Ignoring the form. Writing a notice as a letter, or an email as an essay. The English may be excellent; the marks are not.
- Not checking. Ten minutes of checking recovers marks that took an hour to earn.
Reading the question properly
Read it twice
Once quickly, once with a pen in your hand. The second reading is where you notice the word you missed.
Underline the instruction words
Describe, explain, compare, give two reasons, in your own words, in about 100 words, write a letter to. Each of these changes what a correct answer looks like.
Count the parts
Explain what happened and say how you felt is two tasks. Write a small (2) in the margin so you cannot forget the second one.
Look at the marks
A one-mark question wants a few words. A five-mark question wants five points, or one point developed five ways. The marks tell you the length.
Note the form and the reader
Before writing, say to yourself: This is a formal letter to a stranger. That single sentence prevents the most expensive mistakes.
Dividing your time
Do this in the first two minutes, before you write anything.
Then obey the clock. If your time for a question is finished, stop and move on, even mid-sentence if necessary; you can return at the end. An unattempted question scores nothing, and nothing is the lowest score there is.
- Note the total working time and subtract ten minutes for checking.
- Divide the remainder between the questions in proportion to their marks.
- Write the finishing time for each question in the margin of your answer sheet — not the number of minutes, the actual clock time. Under pressure, arithmetic is the first thing to go.
In the hall
Do
- Attempt every question, even briefly.
- Number your answers exactly as the paper numbers its questions.
- Leave a line between answers so the examiner can see where one ends.
- Cross out rough work with a single line — never scribble over it.
- Write legibly, especially in the last fifteen minutes.
- Keep going when you are stuck on one item; come back to it.
Do not
- Write a long introduction before answering.
- Answer more questions than required, hoping for the best marks to be counted.
- Rewrite an answer neatly — you do not have time, and marks are for content and accuracy.
- Spend the last ten minutes writing more instead of checking.
- Panic over one difficult item; it is worth a small number of marks.
- Leave anything blank.
The last ten minutes
Do not use them to write more. Use them in this order — the items at the top recover the most marks for the least effort.
- Have I attempted every question and every part of every question?
- Are my answer numbers correct and clear?
- In each piece of writing, is the form the one that was asked for?
- Check the verbs: read each sentence looking only at the verb, and at whether it agrees with its subject.
- Check the plurals: informations, advices, equipments, furnitures do not exist.
- Check a, an, the — the errors most students make most often.
- Check capital letters at the start of sentences, and on names, days, months and places.
- Check full stops — especially that two sentences have not been joined with a comma.
- Check the spellings you know you get wrong. Everyone has five or six; learn yours.
- Is my name and index number on the paper?
In the week before
- Do one complete paper under full examination conditions. Not a section — a whole paper, timed, by hand, in one sitting. This is the single most useful thing you can do, and most students never do it.
- Rewrite one answer you did badly. Rewriting one weak answer teaches more than writing three new ones.
- Re-read your own corrected work, not new material. Your own mistakes are the most efficient thing you can revise.
- Sleep. A tired brain reads questions carelessly, and careless reading is the largest single cause of lost marks.