Exams preparations

♦ September 26, 2022 ♦ Leave a comment

Much of the exam preparations centred on the technicalities of each subject, in terms of knowing the subject content. In today’s post, I will share with you on some of the examination preparations that I often put my students through.

Exams readiness

With the reduction of major exams (MYE, EOY-E) a few years ago, students seemingly lack the opportunity to flex their knowledge muscles in major milestone environments. Especially for students who are not doing well, there’s often a need to ascertain the root cause; whether it is due to a lack of knowledge, or being consumed by the exam atmosphere. For the latter, I would often simulate exams conditions when carrying out assessment trials. This would provide me with an important insight whether the learner has “blackout syndrome”.

Checking one’s work

Contrary to popular belief, it is hardly possible to check the entire paper within a span of 15-20 minutes. This is akin to searching for a needle in a haystack and students will usually do a customary check, resulting in countless careless mistakes. Rather than doing so, this is what I advise my proteges

  1. For MCQs, read all options given. It is imperative to go through all options even if a particular option is deemed to be correct. If there is no clear-cut answer, work on elimination instead.
  2. For Maths MCQs, while there is no requirement for working to be done to justify the answers, it does not simply mean “students need not do working”. In some questions, it is still necessary to work out the answers, rather than depending on visual and mental analysis, and expecting the answers to surface. In many cases I encountered, MCQ portion of question papers are barely peppered with working.
  3. Before proceeding to the next question, check if the chosen answer makes sense. For any slightest doubt, circle the question number.
  4. For Science OEQs, note the difference between “observation” and “explain”. For any answer, it must demonstrate scientific conceptual understanding.
  5. With the balance time of 15-20 minutes, use this time to review the circled questions as identified in Point 3.

And the last point is that, as a parent and educator, I do not try hard to downplay the significance of major exams on the pretext that they are too young to handle such stress, as I do not want the learner to misinterpret that exams are not important. Rather, I would prefer the experience to be a memorable one, and one which the child can leverage on at subsequent major milestones such as Secondary Two streaming, and ‘N’, ‘O’ or even ‘A’ Levels.

Good luck to all!

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