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Keeping calm – how to
cope in the exam room
Francesca Burgoyne gives you some tips to help you
score as many marks as possible in your exams
Over the next few weeks thousands of you will sit
silently in neatly laid-out exam rooms anxiously
listening for the phrase ‘You may begin’. You turn
over the paper and not wanting to waste a minute of
the exam, you frantically write down everything you
have learnt on alkanes, acids and alkalis, metals, the
Born-Haber cycle etc. Time passes – there are just five
minutes left and the big 15 mark question is still waiting
for your answer…
Take your time
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It’s natural to want to dive straight in, but taking a few
moments to plan your approach will help you make the
best use of your time in the exam room.
When you turn over the paper, take a few moments to
familiarise yourself with the questions. Although it might
seem like a waste of time, I assure you it isn’t! Think of it
like an experiment: you won’t get the best results unless
you have planned it out first.
Some tips:
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Read the question carefully – make sure you
understand what the question is asking you and
underline the key words. Do you need to show working
out, will you get marks for the units, or spelling,
punctuation and grammar?
Answer the question – you might know your
stuff but examiners can’t give you marks if you
don’t actually answer the question that is asked.
For example, if a question asks you to describe the
difference between ionic and covalent bonding
between atoms, don’t start talking about the van der
Waals interactions between molecules.
Do the easy ones first – you can pick up marks
and confidence by answering these questions first. If
you start with the difficult ones, you could spend too
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Plan your time – based on the number of
questions to answer and how many marks they are
worth. You don’t want to spend five minutes on a
question worth one mark and two minutes on a
question worth five, or run out of time. Leave yourself
some time at the end to check your answers – you
could find that silly mistake.
much time on them and leave yourself flustered. You
might even find yourself extra time to tackle the tricky
questions if you can get through the easy ones quickly.
Check it – if you have planned your time well you
should have enough time to check your answers at the
end of the exam. Easy things to look out for are units,
working out, significant figures, and making sure you
have answered the question.
Obviously, this advice is a guide based on my
experience – yours may be different and it is important
to know what works for you. Also, don’t forget that
exam results are not the only thing that matter. Don’t
let them kill your enthusiasm for a subject and make
sure you reward yourself when they are over!
Good luck!
www.rsc.org/TheMole
4/30/2013 12:10:18 PM