Exam Success at CSU
Answering Different Exam Types
Exam types may vary from multiple essays, short answer questions, multiple-choice questions or a mix of any of these formats, including closed and open book exams. For most exam types, the information under general exam techniques will apply. Following are a number of strategies that apply to specific exam types, which may help you on the day.
If you have a mixed format exam you may like to consider doing the multiple choice items first. Working through the multiple –choice questions may trigger your recall of information for other parts of your paper and act as a warm-up exercise.
Answering exam essays: Multiple essay exams
- Read the question carefully. Underline the key words. Make sure you know what they mean.
- In a multiple essay exam work out how much time to spend on each essay and try to keep to your plan.
- An essay plan in an exam is as important as planning a session essay. A few minutes spent on a plan may save you considerable time and will help you maintain a coherent response.
- Don't panic if you can't think of all the points you want to make in your plan. Start writing. These other points will come to you as you write. When they do, include them in your plan and keep working on your essay. Don't allow yourself to get sidetracked.
- If you run out of time the examiner can see what you were intending to cover in your plan and you may get marks for this.
- Don't rewrite the question but do number your answers.
- Write concisely starting by getting straight into the answer. This is not the time and place to demonstrate your creative writing skills. Always give your answer in the first sentence and use the wording of the question in your answer. This helps ensure you answer the question and the marker can see this immediately. Don't forget the marker is marking many papers. Make your paper easy to mark. For example:
Q 1: How does the role of the registered nurse (RN) differ to that of the enrolled nurse (EN)?
Possible first sentence:
The role of the registered nurse (RN) significantly differs to that of the enrolled nurse (EN). These differences include...
Q 2: Communication skills are useful to today's strategic managers. Discuss.
Possible first sentence:
Communication skills are not only helpful to today's strategic mangers but are essential. They are essential because...
This approach can be used when preparing for the essay based exams but you will also identify the dot point of course.
- Try to write legibly and in complete sentences.
- If you are running out of time and can't finish all you want to say in sentence and paragraph format, then use dot points rather than do nothing.
Single essay exams
Single essay exams are another form of essay based exam that you may encounter. These require that you write a single but much longer essay. You will be expected to produce a well-written essay, as you will be given more time for this one piece of work. Markers will be looking for a thoughtful, comprehensive and well-organised response. You may be asked to take a position on an issue, which must be informed by a thorough knowledge of the topic.
Multiple-choice exams
Some multiple-choice exams are structured so that marks are deducted for wrong answers. Check this, because if so, this will affect your strategy when answering the paper. It certainly takes the fun out of guessing.
- Read the directions carefully. The directions may say: "choose the most correct answer" or "mark the one best answer." Sometimes you may be asked to "mark all correct answers".
- Take careful note of keys terms in the question stem such as every, all, always, only, usually, often, generally...
- Work systematically through the paper.
- Start by answering the questions you know.
- Go back to your unanswered questions. Answer those that require more thought (but don't spend too much time on any one question).
- Eliminate the obviously incorrect alternatives to narrow down number of alternatives you have to choose from if you are not sure of the answer.
- For these more difficult choices read the stem with each alternative to take advantage of the correct sound or flow that the correct answer often produces.
- Some students find it effective to read the stem and anticipate the correct alternative before actually looking at the alternatives.
- For the remaining questions, either work through them slowly using the above strategies or guess. This will depend on how much time you have and whether marks are deducted for incorrect answers.
- If you have a good reason for changing your answer, change it. Changing answers on a multiple choice or true-false exam is neither good nor bad. We tend to focus on those we get wrong, and not those we changed from wrong to right. Hence the myth.
More information on completing multiple choice tests can be found on the exam website for University of Victoria, which informed the above information.
Mathematics or statistics exams
As stated earlier the key to exam success in any mathematics or statistics based discipline is preparation. Very particular skills will be examined in these types of exams and the student must be well prepared. This means that the student must have reviewed the course material carefully and often, and practised the skills by attempting a range of exercises from all the major course areas.
Many of the general exam strategies may well apply for maths exams but here are a few more:
- Work through the questions in the order in which you feel confident. Making sure you number the answers clearly.
- Show all working, while the answer may be wrong you may attract marks for correct working.
- Take note of how many marks a question is worth. Use this information to work out how much time to allocate to each question.
- Watch the time carefully.
- Try all questions even if you cannot complete them as you can't get marks for a blank page but you might for working through part of a question.