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Planning your Campaign
So, you’re sitting in your exam- the clock has just started ticking and you’ve been told to start writing.
Where do you go from here?
The first thing to do is read over, carefully, the entire exam paper. Spend a good 5-10 minutes reading before you write anything. In this time, work out which questions you are going to answer, which order you are going to answer them in, and plan your time in the exam: how much time you are going to spend answering each question.

Take careful note of the marking scheme when making this plan. Write down the plan on the back sheet of your answer book- you can always score it out later. It helps you feel in control, and that helps keep you calm.

Don’t be tempted to do a question on subject X just because it’s the subject you know the most about. It might be a real stinker of a question. Are you sure you can do it? Which parts can you do? How many marks do you think you could get on the parts of the question you can do? You might find there is another, much easier question on subject Y, which you might not have chosen because you found subject Y is harder, or because one part of the question looks really difficult. Work it out for each part of each question: which question is likely to get you the most marks? Do that one.

Reading the whole question is also important because many questions lead you through a problem – the answer to part a) is used in part b), etc. There might be clues in later parts of the question about what the examiner is expecting. Make sure you spot them.

As an examiner I am constantly amazed by students who set out to do questions that they’ve clearly got not the first clue how to do. Surely there would be another question on the paper that they could have got a few marks on at least?

When working out time-scales, try and balance the time spend on a part of the question against the marks you will achieve. If it’s a 90 minute exam, and it’s marked out of 60, then on average you’ve got 1,5 minutes to get each mark. Plan time accordingly.

Remember: exam questions are not about writing down everything you know about a topic-  if you do this you’ll almost certainly run out of time. You’re trying to get the best mark you can on the whole paper, not just on the question you happen to be doing at the time.

Obviously, the plan (with time-scales) is not a rigid one, and going a few minutes over on one question is OK – but try and catch it up if this happens.

Dump your brain
Another thing you can do as soon as you are told to start writing is to “dump your brain” onto a piece of paper. This means writing down any information that you have memorised or may find difficult to remember. This includes information such as formulas, dates, keywords, mnemonics, and even diagrams.

Usually you’re given a blank piece of paper along with your question paper at the beginning of the exam. This is what that piece of paper is for use it! –  Brainstorm Academy.