Top 10 exam tips

Sweaty palms, nightmares, a black-out even. Exams may cause you to experience terrible anxiety. Too much! But fear is not at all necessary. After all, our exam requirements set out exactly what you need to know and do before going in to an exam. On top of this, we give you ten tips that increase your chances of passing an exam. Take notice of these tips when preparing for your exam.

Top Ten Exam Tips
1. Be sure to use the exam requirements, recommended literature and sample exams. The exam requirements, which includes a list of literature and the sample exams can be found by selecting the exam of your choice on our Literature can be ordered via EXIN's

2. Complete the sample exam first without consulting the answers. Then make sure to carefully read and understand the feedback.

3. Make sure to allow for plenty of time when travelling to the exam location.

4. Enter an exam well-rested.

5. Start with the easy questions. Do not get stuck on difficult ones, but put those questions aside and return to them later.

6. Often, first impressions are best. Therefore, do not change your answers unless you are absolutely certain that you have made a mistake.

7. Read the question very carefully. Consider what precisely is being asked. If the question demands four arguments, then give four, not three or five. Do not write more than required in the hope that the people marking the exams will select the correct answers.

8. The so-called ‘Open exam questions’ demand that you compose the entire answer yourself: make sure you write clearly.

9. In the case of multiple choice questions: think of your own answer first before looking at the answers listed on the page.

10. When you are finished, check carefully whether you have answered all the questions. 

No matter how much or how little you study one thing is crucial for you to realize; you are being tested by an examination so you must practice answering examination questions. How you approach these practice questions will greatly affect your exam success. Here's what you have to do. Never answer questions with the text book or study notes in front of you. It is essential that you practice your exam questions under the same conditions you will face in the exam!

Even if you promise yourself not to look, a brief glance unknown to yourself will help you answer a part of a question and lead to believe that you know it when you don't! When you find yourself hitting a brick wall in an exam on material you thought you knew, this can be one of the causes. Even the psychological comfort of having your study notes nearby is something you won't have in the exam and once you find yourself without them you will feel the pressure.

Time yourself. Write down the time at the start of each question and at the end. Don't worry if you go over the allocated time, you will improve with practice. But do keep an eye on how long you are taking. If you are consistently over the time, then either you are writing too much or you do not know your content well enough and you are taking too long to think about it.

Usually if you have practiced a lot and are still taking too long, you do know your material but are writing too much. Pay more attention to the wording of your questions, and the marks awarded for each section, if this is available. This will help you gauge the depth required. Ask your teacher to correct some of your answers to see what you can safely leave out.

You may have studied your material well and still not get the marks you deserve. Or you may have less work done and still maximize your results in the exam. What do you need to do to? Practice exactly what you have to do in the exam by doing as many exam questions as you can under the right conditions.

Assuming you are already working without any notes or text, timing yourself and learning how much you have to write as discussed earlier, then you are already on track.

What next?

Find out as much as you can about what is required in the exam questions. Pay attention to the action words in the questions. State, define, explain, give an outline, compare.....learn exactly what is required by these words. They will tell you how deep to go in your answers.

Too many exam entrants look for the content words in the question to see what it is about and then dump whatever they know on the page. It's better than nothing, but especially if you are well prepared, you will probably write too much and gain no marks at all for the extra parts you write!! It doesn't matter how much you know if the question doesn't ask about it!

Get to know your syllabus. Find out in each section the depth required. Don't rely too much on your text books - they contain a lot of extra information to help explain what you need to know or to make it more relevant or interesting. Make the most of your teacher's expertise.

Listen to your teachers and ask their advice. They will be delighted to see you thinking in such a proactive way about your own study progress and will save you a lot of time that you could waste trying to find out for yourself.

10 Ways to Increase Your Concentration

10 Ways to Increase Your Concentration

1.                              First understand clearly what concentration is: “Concentration is taking your mind off many things and putting it on one thing at a time.”

2.                              Decide carefully what you want to concentrate on, for in many subtle and not-so-subtle ways, you become that which you focus on — that is, you take on the attributes of your chosen subject of concentration. Have you ever noticed how couples who have been married for many years start to look like each other, or how people often come to resemble their pets, their cars, their hobbies, or their work projects?

3.                              Generally speaking, everyone has had experiences in total concentration. Go to a good adventure film at a movie theater. In the middle of it, stop watching the movie (this might be hard, but do it anyway) and look around at the people in the theater. What are they doing? They are absolutely still, eyes barely blinking, and their breath is slower. It would take a really major distraction to break their attention stream. These physiological signs may give you a hint about ways to increase your own concentration abilities.

4.                              Some of the enemies of concentration skills are constant sensory input, multi-tasking, trying to do many things all a the same time, loud noises, and flashing light patterns. The human nervous system is a marvelous thing, but it is not built to function in the face of these things on a full-time basis. Attention deficit patterns come, at least to some extent, from the activities or situations which make concentration difficult to impossible. Then a habit of non-attention or inability to concentrate deeply is established and difficult to overcome.

5.                              Make it a point to put your full concentration on whatever you are doing. Don’t let anything distract you. It really helps to be in a quiet place, but you can learn to block out noise if necessary.

6.                              Understand the essential connection between concentration and energy. Deep concentration is a matter of increasing or directing your life-force or conscious, cosmic energy. The more of this kind of energy you have, the better. Scattered energy doesn’t help. It must be calm, focused energy. Learn to be calmly concentrated and be concentratedly calm.

7.                              Learn and practice some physical and mental energization techniques. This is an important first step toward the ability to concentrate deeply.

8.                              Take breaks. Go outside and breathe deeply or take a brisk walk. Make yourself do this often and you’ll be able to return to your task recharged and ready to focus more creatively.

9.                              Meditation is the most powerful of all concentration enhancement techniques. Learn a few simple meditation techniques and practice them at least five minutes daily.

10.                          A first step in the concentration aspect of meditation is to focus on watching your breath — not controlling it in any way, but just observing it. This helps to train yourself in taking your mind off of many things, and putting it on one thing at a time — in this case the breath. As you observe your breath, it will calm down, your brain will calm down also (this is a scientifically well-documented, mind-breath connective function), and you automatically move into a dynamic, peaceful (but not sleepy) state of being. Your mind becomes recharged and creatively receptive.