Every year, many students fail to finish an exam. It is a real shame — I know, because I have done it myself. The principle to hold on to throughout this article is straightforward:
A few careless errors cost less than a few blank pages.
Here are my top recommendations.
1) Do not go too slow
This advice may sound counter-intuitive, but it is simple: go almost as quickly as you can.
A couple of reasons why:
i) It is the only reliable way to guarantee you finish.
Working through an exam quickly produces one of two outcomes. Either (1) you finish with time to spare, in which case you can go back and check your answers — and there are few better feelings than handing in a paper you have checked twice; or (2) you finish in just enough time, in which case it was your pace that saved you. Either way, working briskly is the optimal strategy.
ii) Maths and science are like a language.
By the time you sit your exam, you should be fluent in the level of maths or science the paper demands. Imagine, as a native English speaker, trying to deliver a sentence deliberately slowly — it is actually harder than speaking at a natural pace, because it breaks the flow. The same is true for maths. You will be most effective at your natural pace — which is usually slightly below your fastest possible pace.
2) "Star it and move on"
This is a skill worth developing as early as possible. Some questions you will not be able to answer no matter how long you spend on them. A critical element of timekeeping is identifying those questions quickly, marking them with a star, and moving on.
It is also worth remembering that sometimes the only thing needed to solve a problem is a fresh set of eyes. The brain occasionally takes us down a dead-end approach, and the only way out is to leave the question and return later.
A general rule of thumb: on the first pass through an exam, if you make no progress on a question within three minutes, star it and move on.
3) You do not have to work chronologically
There is no obligation to answer the exam in order. In my article on general exam technique I recommend skimming the paper before starting.
Once you have skimmed, consider which is more sensible:
a) Struggle with the hard questions first, and risk running out of time on the easy ones; or
b) Get a healthy percentage of the exam done early via the easier questions, then tackle the harder ones at the end in a more relaxed and confident state.
It is a loaded question — the answer is (b).
Most exams do increase in difficulty as they go, so working chronologically is often fine. But this is not always the case, and a little thought about which questions to tackle first goes a long way.
4) The end-game
If you have followed the timekeeping advice above, you should have answered all the easy questions and have a good amount of time remaining. The end-game is about how you divide that remaining time.
The question becomes: how much time should you spend on the difficult (starred) questions, versus rechecking the easier ones you have already answered? The right answer depends on the situation, but the goal is always the same — maximise marks. A few things to consider:
- A hard question worth a lot of marks is probably worth your time.
- A very hard question worth only one mark is probably not worth a heavy investment of time, unless you are confident everything else has been checked.
- If you went through the exam very quickly, spending some time rechecking your answers is sensible.
You can also continue to apply the same rule of thumb here: if you make no progress on a question within three minutes, leave it and return later.