1. Understand the materials

Your aim is to have a broad understanding of all topics that are to be covered in the test. Use methods that suit your preferred learning style. Discuss it with others (auditory), draw mind-maps (visual), read background information (read/write), apply it (kinaesthetic).

Make sure you know what topics are in the test – check the course outline and ask your lecturer. Make sure you study all topics that are in the test, and don’t study those that aren’t (if you’re really sure they’re not in the test).

Add background information from the textbook and other places to your study notes. Deep and wide understanding is better here than memorising the few facts you wrote down in class.

Typical questions involve scenarios, which require you to apply the theory to a case study which is completely new to you, compare and contrast questions, which require you to relate topics to each other, and analyse and develop questions, which require you to use the skills taught.

You will not see a lot of questions that ask you to list, describe or explain a topic. These answers would come straight out of your notes, and unless the lecturer is trying to give you an easy time, they’re only going to use these as warm-up questions to help you started.

2. Prepare notes to take into the test

Your aim is to take in only what you need for the test, so that you can find what you need, quickly. You won’t know what you need in advance, so try to get as much information from the tutor as possible.

Identify all the things that might help you, then consider them carefully. Don’t take in too much – the more you have, the more time you’re going to waste moving books around and trying to find what you’re looking for.

Three top tips:

1. Use post-it notes as bookmarks. Use different colours for different topics, and write the topic on the bookmark, so you can find it easily – you don’t have to flick through a whole lot of bookmarks to find the right one.

2. Highlight mercilessly. Key words and the heading of important sections are good things to highlight. Use different colours.

3. Make kick-ass study notes. The more concise your notes are, the easier it will be to find what you need.

If this level of preparation is new to you, here’s a very, very useful hint: you know those people who always do really well in tests and exams? This is what they do for every test. Honest. It makes their study time much more effective and, of course, as they do this preparation they’re learning the stuff, making sense of it, and relating it to other things they’ve learnt – all of which we call deep learning, and which is the key to getting really good grades (and really learning the stuff). Seriously.

Once you’ve got a broad understanding and have prepared your materials, then you can prepare like any other test. When you sit the test, do what you would in any other test, but keep a very careful eye on the time you spend on each question.

Good luck.

My Helpdesk students have an open book test coming up (evil laughter … more evil laughter … maniacal laughter).

I hate to tell you, but open book tests aren’t easy.

I thought might help you to know how I think about open book tests, and why I set them in my practical subjects. Remember that your other lecturers might think differently.

I set open book tests for topics which I believe you need to understand, not memorise. For example, in my Database Administration course the final test is to performance tune a large Oracle database (more evil laughter). Anyone who knows Oracle knows how easy that test will be (hint: it’s not).

Memorising the syntax of the “sar” command is not the point. What I really want to know is whether you understand how databases work, how to test database performance, and how to tune the database. So I let you look up the sar command.

Besides, it won’t help you pass the test. If you don’t understand that other stuff, you won’t be able to tune the database properly. So you won’t be able to pass the test. I designed it that way.

Sure, the underlying principles are in your notes too – so you could, possibly, teach yourself how to tune a database while actually in the test. That would be fine by me – you learn it anyway.

But, of course, you won’t have time to use your notes. Not much, anyway. If you have to look up every single step, you won’t finish the test. So if you don’t know most of the stuff anyway, you won’t pass. I designed it that way too.

In the Helpdesk course, we look at writing Helpdesk Proposals and Implementation Plans. If you were actually writing a report, I’d rather you looked up what sections it should contain. I’m really interested in whether you understand what information should go into those sections. So I might give you a scenario, and ask you to write an Implementation Plan. You can get the structure from your notes – that’s fine – but you have to understand what’s needed. The scenario contains issues that you should pick up if you understand the theory – if you’re writing off the top of your head, you probably won’t get good marks. You guessed it – I designed the question that way. I also keep the students very busy in that test, so that if they have to go to their notes for everything, they won’t finish.

I don’t do an open book test as the major assessment component: in both these courses the test is 20% of the final grade. But they’re definitely not easy. In the next post I’ll talk about how to prepare for an open book test and what sorts of questions you might expect to see.

The day before the test:

• Go over all of your notes, skim through the text book and thoroughly review everything.
• Pack your bag with everything you’ll need: pens (take more than one), notes, paper, water, tissues, etc. Get everything else you need together – like your wallet, car keys and clothes. You’ll start the day calmer, and have everything that you need with you.
• Please, please pack more than one pen. Someone’s always runs out: don’t let it be you.
• Check the time and place of the test – even if you think you know.
• To help you think better and sleep better -
  • Eat healthily
  • Avoid caffeine and nicotine. If you’re addicted, you’re going to need it to stay normal, but keep an eye on it.
  • Get a bit of exercise (but don’t overdo it)
  • Spend a bit of time relaxing
• Get a good night’s sleep. It’ll help you think better the next day.

On the day of the test:

• Get there early, and check out where the test room is; make sure you know how to get there.
• Avoid caffeine and nicotine as far as possible again. These make you more nervous, which is not what you want!
• Keep calm, and try to relax if you’re getting nervous. Take a walk, and purposefully breathing slowly & deeply.
• Do any study that you feel will help you, but keep relaxed about it.

When you get into the test room:

• Choose a desk wisely. If you’re easily distracted by others, consider sitting up the front. If you like to be able to rest your eyes by looking into the distance, sit by the window – not in the middle of the class, where the examiner might think you’re looking at other peoples’ work
• Get out everything you want to have with you, and put it on the desk. Tissues and water are a really good idea!!
• Relax – there’s nothing more you can do now. Breath deeply and slowly.
• Listen to all instructions, and follow them.

When you are told you can start the test:

• Read the front page – note how long the test is and any other instructions.
• Find out how many marks are in the test, and work out how many minutes per mark
  • e.g. 50 marks & 60 minutes = a mark a minute, with some time at the end to go back.
• Read through all the questions before you start to write. This allows your mind to start working on the last questions in the background.
• Start with the easiest question. You can usually answer test questions in any order you like. Answering an easy question makes you feel good, and so makes it easier to answer other questions. It also starts getting you “on a roll” or “into the zone”. And your brain can work away at the hard questions in the background.
• Jot down the key points on the test script or answer booklet (you can cross them out when you’ve finished). You can then structure your answer better. I’ve had students pick up marks when they didn’t finish the answer, but hadn’t crossed out the list – they got marks for the points they hadn’t added in yet. Things that are crossed out aren’t marked.
• Answer the question: know what key words like describe, explain, discuss, compare & contrast and illustrate mean, and then do that.
• … the whole question: Answer all parts of the question – if you’re asked to explain something, using an example, then make sure you have (a) explained and (b) given an example. No matter how wonderful your explanation is, you won’t get the marks for the example unless you give one.
• … and nothing but the question: If you’re asked to discuss Operational Feasibility, don’t add in Technical and Legal Feasibility too, to show what you know. The examiner knows what the answer should be, and is comparing your answer to that. There may be marks for defining Operational Feasibility and mentioning the key questions for operational feasibility, but there will be no marks for other types of feasibility. Don’t waste your time.
• Keep answering the questions that you can, leaving the hard ones ’til last.
• When the time is up for each question, stop. If it’s a minute a mark, and a 10-mark question, after 10 minutes, stop. Seriously. After the first few minutes you probably got out most of the important information, so you’re into diminishing returns for your time – each mark is harder and harder to get. You’re better going on to a new question, where you can get more marks, quicker. Mark the question on your test sheet so that you know to come back to it later if you have time.
• When you can’t think of an answer, relax. Seriously. Exam nerves or anxiety caused by not knowing the answer triggers our fight-or-flight response, and the brain switches into “react” mode, out of “recall”. Try your best to relax, and you might find memories coming back. You might let your mind wander for a few minutes, to see if you come to the answer laterally. Don’t give in to the fight-or-flight response by leaving.
• If you don’t know, guess. Please! Unless you will lose marks for a wrong answer (and this should be clearly noted on the test script), you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Even if you pick up half a mark, it’s worth it.
• When you’ve finished, read over your answers and check that you’ve answered all parts of all questions.
• Stay til the end, unless you’re absolutely sure you have answered all the questions 100% correctly (hint: you won’t have). Often inspiration strikes after you’ve been sitting there relaxing for 10 minutes.

Of course, you’re still going to need to study to pass

Hope this helps,

What are your top test taking tips? Please add a comment to let me know.

• 1. Know thyself
• 2. Use it or lose it

Why write study notes:

1. Less to revise:

• Textbooks have a lot of information that helps you understand; once you understand, you only need reminders
• Your notes will have information that is now second nature to you
• Some of your notes will be irrelevant; at the start of the course you won’t have been able to tell what is important and what isn’t, so you probably wrote it all down (you should have, anyway).
• Some of your notes, handouts and the textbook won’t be examined – if you’re sure, leave them out.

2. You can make them to suit your own learning style.

3. You can include information from classes (notes, handouts and slides), the text book and your reading & research in the same place.

So study notes are really, really useful, and it’s much easier to study from one set of notes, in a style that suits you, than from information all over the place which doesn’t suit you. So …

How to make study notes:

1. Make them suit your preferred learning style.

2. Show main points clearly then be able to see more detailed notes. This lets you find information quickly and test yourself by hiding the detail. Here’s a simple way to lay out notes:

However … just before the test, I recommend revising your complete notes and the textbook again, to add back in any context or additional information you’ve been skipping over.

I’ll try to write another post over the weekend with some hints about what to do in the test room, for the Project Management students who have their test on Monday.

Now that you know your learning style, the next step is to use it. If you didn’t take the learning style test in part one, here it is again.

Auditory and read/write learners have it easiest in western education settings, which often involve listening, talking, writing and reading text books. With any luck your teachers, lecturers and tutors will add in activities for visual and kinaesthetic learners as well. But what is most important is what you do for your own study time: basically, the trick is to do activities which suit you best. Here are some ideas:

Visual: draw study notes that use pictures, diagrams, mind maps , flow charts instead of a list of steps, colours (highlight your notes, use different coloured pens and pencils), shapes, use whiteboards to draw pictures or mind-maps, draw diagrams or pictures, or colour-coded answers to answer possible questions.

Auditory: discussion groups, listen to lectures, download podcasts on the topic or create your own, make up ryhmes, poems or songs to memorise a list (and repeat them aloud), explain the concept or recite a list to the dog (they’re great listeners), answer possible questions aloud.

Read/Write: write study notes, read them and re-write them, write words that describe diagrams or pictures, use whiteboards to write lists and notes, write out answers to possible questions.

Kinaesthetic: physically do something – at all costs, don’t just read the textbook and your notes! Doing anything helps – use whiteboards to write or draw answers to possible questions, write study notes, type them on the computer. If you’re doing an applied subject, actually do the skills taught – so to learn Project Management, actually choose a really small project (like fixing the toaster) and do the techniques taught – create a Brief, do a plan, identify risks and monitor your progress against the plan.

There’s lots of ideas on the web for different learning styles: for example see here and here and here, or google “learning style”.

I’ve discussed the basic VARK styles, but there’s other classifications of learning styles – you can find out more about them in the articles above if you’re interested.

In the next few posts I’ll talk about some study methods that can benefit everyone, then move on to some tricks for when you’re actually sitting the test.

The single best thing you can do to study easier is to learn using your own preferred learning style.

Are you visual? Do you learn best from pictures, color and shape?

Maybe you’re auditory – you learn best by listening?

How about read/writing – from looking at words, and/or writing them?

Or kinaesthetic – you learn best by doing something always?

When learning to do something physical, like use a hammer or a computer, doing it is the best way. But when given a choice, would you prefer to dive in and do it, or maybe talk about it, read about it or look around first?

Have a think about the things you choose to do in your spare time – do they involve looking at things or creating images; listening to people or music; reading or writing; or doing things? You may have two or more preferred styles, or you may have a significant preference for one style.

Your preferred style doesn’t mean you can’t learn in the other ways – just that you’ll learn easiest and best in your preferred way. I’m highly auditory, so I learn best by going to classes and from discussions. Skipping class is therefore a really bad idea for me. I remember something I’ve heard much better than something I’ve just read (although I have a secondary preference for reading and writing). I certainly remember words better than images, because I’m not at all visual.

On the other hand, my husband is visual and kinaesthetic. Because learning styles have a wider impact than just in study, this creates interesting problems for us!

Take this learning styles test to find your own learning style, then browse the information on the website to find out more about how you learn best, and how to do that when studying for a test.

In the next few posts we’ll get in to what you can actually do to study easier, not harder.