Physics Exam-writing Strategies

You may find the following suggestions helpful to your preparation and writing of exams:

Allocate your time (example is for a midterm)

You have 90 minutes to obtain 45 marks - this works out to 2 minutes per mark.

Therefore, you should plan to spend no more than 30 minutes on Part A and about 20 minutes on each of the three Part B questions.  If you want, you can factor in some review time by allocating about 10 minutes for review, and dividing 80 minutes by 45 marks to obtain about 1.75 minutes per mark (26 minutes for Part A and 17 minutes for each Part B question).

'Bank' your marks

You don't have to answer the exam questions from front to back.  Remember that the Part B solutions are awarded partial marks for correct work.  Review the Part B questions first - if you find one that you know you can do easily, do it!  Even if you make a small mistake, these are 'marks in the bank'!  If you work through the questions from easiest to most difficult then by the end of the exam you will be working on questions that you may not have been able to answer anyway - and you won't have wasted time on these questions earlier.

Prepare as if the exam were an athletic/music/dance competition

Many of you are athletes (past or present), or have competed in music festivals or dance competitions, etc.  Many of your pre-competition strategies can be applied to writing exams:

• avoid staying up late the night before the exam
• eat a nutritious breakfast, lunch, and dinner the day of the exam
• bring a bottle of water to the exam
• avoid cramming in the hours before the exam, try going for a walk to clear your mind of negative thoughts
• make use of any mental training that you may have received - meditation, visualization, relaxation, etc.
• take a few calming deep breaths before opening the exam booklet

Hopefully you will find some of these suggestions helpful.

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